Notorious (1946)

I have watched and re-watched so many Hitchcock movies, and it just occurred to me that I have never once spotted Hitchcock doing one of his cameos, aside from after the movie if there's a DVD feature that shows it to me. I'm going to choose to believe that this is because I am so involved in the plots of the movies and not that I am completely unobservant. Anyways, I've been meaning to see this one since "Suspicion," because I had parts of the plots confused.

Notorious: Ingrid Bergman plays Alicia, the daughter of a Nazi spy who killed himself in prison. Cary Grant plays an American agent, Devlin, who recruits Alicia to spy on her father's former friends. He brings her to Rio de Janeiro, where she is expected to infiltrate a group of German scientists. When Alicia and Devlin first arrive in Rio, they don't know the full details of Alicia's assignment. As they wait for their orders, Alicia falls in love with Devlin, and Devlin does his best to pretend that he has not fallen for her. Devlin finally receives word that the assignment calls for Alicia to seduce a former friend of her father's who was once in love with her, Alexander Sebastian ("...Claude Rains was the invisible man..."!). He is horrified and tries but fails to tell the other American agents that it is not a job Alicia should be made to do. He returns to Alicia's apartment (where she has been preparing a lovely romantic dinner for him), and tells her the assignment. Alica is just as horrified as Devlin and is upset by the seemingly emotionless way in which Devlin tells her about it. All she wants is for Devlin to admit that he loves her and does not want her to take the assignment. Devlin is unable to do this and doesn't even tell her that he tried to get her out of it. This all leads to Alicia's wonderfully delivered line, "Oh, we shouldn't have had this out here. It's all cold now." Alicia is reintroduced to Sebastian, very quickly marries him, and begins to feed Devlin information about the scientists who meet frequently at the house. Unfortunately for Alicia, Sebastian discovers her treachery, putting her into even greater danger. I will not give the ending away. Just know that Cary Grant is wonderful.



I realized that while I watch Cary Grant movies, I am always evaluating which Cary Grant characters I would run away with. Devlin, I think, is not quite right for me. It would be too tortured what with neither of us giving away our feelings. I remain most likely to run off with Johnny Case from "Holiday." Four stars for this movie... I am sure I will see it again someday. Time to see "Holiday" again!

Father Goose (1965)

I confess I could not get this movie the first time around. And I confess it's become sort of a favorite since then. It's a strange movie, probably mostly because of the weird chemistry between the very young prim French woman and the older slovenly drunk American soldier.



And yet, it's got something - I'm starting to sound like a broken record tonight so maybe this means that Cary Grant is the something. A man who can somehow leap over absurdity in a single bound and make us love the ridiculous. I wonder if Steve Martin is like the closest thing we have to a Cary Grant in our generation only - let's face it, Steve - not quite as handsome.

Yup, CG has the physical comedy down like John Cleese or Steve Martin - and yet he has more charm than George Clooney double-dating with Richard Gere. I'm telling you, he is the MAN.

Cary, you are the MAN.

Anyhow, back to the movie...CG plays a drunk and disorderly soldier left alone to watch for planes on an island in the South Pacific. He is only motivated by his desire to find liquor that his commander has hidden on the island to motivate him.

Enter a damsel in distress...Cary is sent to fetch a diplomat's grown daughter escorting a troop of other diplomats' daughters who have crashed? or been abandoned? on a desert island nearby. He rescues them to his island and they set up house, sort of.

Cary befriends the children, the prim and proper diplomat's daughter can't stay prim and proper on a desert island, and the rest is...history.

The best scene involves a snake bite and is about halfway through the movie.

For that scene if nothing else, this one is also a must-watch.

Three stars. Am watching again right now.

Operation Petticoat (1959)

Cary Grant just keeps working!



Here he is in 1959 playing the captain of a submarine in a tough spot. I'm a little hazy on the details, but somehow this luckless submarine has never seen a battle and yet has too many mechanical problems to be approved to go back into action. Nevertheless, they need to get it under way.

There is a lot of comedy at the expense of the way the Navy runs things. All about requisitioning toilet paper and the black market for parts and supplies. Tony Curtis plays the man adept at working back channels to get things.

The sub ends up taking off without it's proper top coat of paint, so it's pink. Then Tony Curtis convinces the captain to take some WAC nurses on board for the ride. And - you guessed it! - hilarity ensues.

There is a lot of entertainment in young Tony Curtis and mature Cary Grant playing off each other. There is plenty of sexism (and racism where the islanders of the South Pacific are concerned) to go around and the whole movie just gets very silly when they go into battle with the women aboard.

However, there are redeeming points including:

- A scene in which Cary Grant demands Tony Curtis give up his tight white tennis shorts for regular army gear.
- A female engineer teaching a male engineer a thing or two.
- An indescribible scene with a pig being passed off as a soldier.

Two stars - and yet it is a MUST watch.

Houseboat (1958)

This is kind of like "Parent Trap" meets "Swiss Family Robinson" or something...


Cary Grant plays a successful businessman - or is he a diplomat? I forget - oh he's a lawyer - whose estranged wife is killed suddenly before they are officially divorced. The wife's parents and sister expect to take his three children and keep them on the family farm, but the CG impulsively decides he will take them to live with him.

However, he hasn't been a hands-on parent in a long time and he quickly loses track of his impish son. Cue Sophia Loren, the bored daughter of a famous conductor who is being wined and dined in Washington while her father conducts the symphony. She sneaks out to go slumming a la Audrey H. in Roman Holiday, really.

Along the way, she picks up the runaway boy with a kind word and then can't shake him. Finally she takes him home, but they've both become so disheveled that his father assumes she is a maid. Treats her quite rudely. Soon he has a change of heart and decides to hire her as a nanny.

All this leaves us with...no house boat. The house boat is the result of a very silly side plot but the whole story unfolds pretty amusingly. There is even a boy chasing Sophia and the sister of the dead wife chasing Cary to add to the fun.

The odd, precocious young children and the absurdity of a stunning, accomplished young woman (Sophia Loren!) chasing after an older man with three kids are outweighed by the sheer silly charm of the scenes.

Also, there are a few songs. The catchiest song became my anthem this spring when I watched the movie - it's about living life with a Bim Bom Bam and it's as nonsensical and pleasant as the whole darn film.

Three Stars, will watch again.

Side note: Cary Grant had been married to Betsy Drake for nine years at the time of the filming (I put Deborah Kerr the first time I posted this but I was tragically WRONG thanks Barbara for figuring it out!). But he had a terrible crush on Sophia Loren and insisted that she be cast in this movie (did they invent the traveling composer father to explain why she was foreign?). Unfortunately for him, Sophia was already involved with Carlo Ponti, the Italian filmmaker, to whom she became engaged during the course of filming. Apparently this made for a rather tense time on the set once it was announced. OMG just found out that Betsy Drake wrote the original script which was then re-written to accommodate Sophia AWK-ward.

Saboteur (1942)

Three stars. I would probably watch it again some day.

At the beginning of the movie Barry (Robert Cummings) is working in an aircraft factory. Suddenly a fire starts in one of the hangers. When Barry and his friend rush over to help, the mysterious Mr. Fry (Norman Lloyd), hands them a fire extinguisher. Barry's friend enters the hanger and is blown up. Within a few hours, Barry is suspected of sabotage. It turns out that that fire extinguisher handed to him by Fry, that Barry then handed to his friend, was full of gasoline. Barry runs from the police to try to find Fry and clear his own name. Eventually, after a wonderful scene involving a horse chase (yay, a horse chase!), Barry takes refuge in the cabin of a wise blind man. Being a wise blind man, the man can of course hear that Barry is wearing handcuffs, knows Barry is wanted as a dangerous saboteur, but also is able to sense that Barry must be a good-hearted man who has been wrongly accused. The wise blind man tells his niece Pat (Priscilla Lane of Arsenic and Old Lace) to take Barry to the blacksmith to have his handcuffs removed. Pat is not quite convinced of Barry's innocence and tries to take him to the police station, and Barry is forced to abduct her and drag her along with him as he continues to run from the law.



It is worth watching this movie because:

*You get to see Hitchcock's art.
*Barry and Pat spend part of a night riding in a train caboose with some kindly (and some grumpy) circus performers. The bearded lady is very sweet, of course.
*Pat writes a "Help Me!" note in lipstick and throws it out the window of a skyscraper.
*There is an exciting chase and much drama inside and hanging from the torch of the Statue of Liberty.



This must have been a scary movie when it came out in 1942, what with the American citizens colluding with Nazis and committing horrifying acts of sabotage.

I Love You Again (1940)

I had to see this... One of the movies where Myrna Loy and William Powell are together, but not as Nick and Nora. Luckily I really liked it... four stars...



When the movie starts, Larry (Powell) is almost the opposite of Nick. His drink of choice is ginger ale with grape juice (some kind of warped Shirley Temple?). He's so stuffy that he walks around saying things like, "You're inebriated," and people laugh about him and call him "Mr. Grape Juice." Near the beginning of the movie Larry falls off a cruise ship trying to rescue a drowning man and gets conked on the head with an oar. When he wakes up, he has no memory of being Larry and of the last nine years of his life. It turns out he is really a swindler named George who got amnesia when he was knocked in the head in a fight nine years ago. He immediately starts to scheme with the rescued-from-drowning crook about ways to steal money from the town where Larry has been living. Things get more complicated when George steps off of the ship to find that Larry has a wife, Kay (Loy). He is torn between getting right to work on his plot and pursuing Kay, who is about to divorce him for being too boring and stuffy. Of course now that Larry is really George, he has a whole new personality, realizes he is hopelessly in love with Kay and cannot let her go, and much hilarity ensues.

My favorite scene might be when George/Larry gets Kay to dance with him by dancing alone in a crowded restaurant until she goes to get him. You can see it at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=cAjn16uT7ZA

There are just too many good lines in this movie. Myrna Loy and William Powell play off of each other just as well as in the Thin Man movies.



It makes me want to see some of their other non-Nick and Nora movies, even though I still have the final Thin Man waiting to be watched.

Charade (1963)

Four stars. Of course I'll see it again.



How I can have seen this movie three times and still be surprised at times is beyond me. I guess the trick is to wait 5-10 years between viewings. Regina (Audrey Hepburn) meets Cary Grant at a ski resort near the beginning of the movie. They have a wonderful flirty/sarcastic conversation during which he tells her he is divorced, and she lets him know that she is about to be divorced, and is he going to call her when they're back in Paris? Regina returns home to Paris to find her apartment empty and to be told that her husband is murdered. Before he was killed he turned all their possessions into cash... cash that is nowhere to be found. Cary Grant turns up at her apartment, offers help, and the intrigue begins. It turns out Regina's husband's money was stolen (from the US government!), and there are many shady characters after it.



I love that this is a romantic comedy while being a mystery/thriller, whatever you want to call it. I love movies that I want to quote. "Oh, I love you, Adam, Alex, Peter, Brian, whatever your name is, I love you! I hope we have a lot of boys and we can name them all after you!"

"How do you shave in there?":



And I love this scene, where Cary Grant showers in his clothes. Drip dry:



CG: "I usually sing a medly of old favorites when I'm in the shower...any requests?"
AH: "Shut the door."
CG: "Oh, I'm afraid I don't know that one, Miss."

Oh, here's the scene:

Pocketful of Miracles (1961)

A remake of Capra's Lady for a Day. In color, with a lot more money, as far as I can tell...same story: a woman has somehow managed to convince her daughter that she is a well-bred society lady while at the same time maintaining a life as an apple-seller on the streets of New York City.



Things to love...
1. It's a Christmas Movie. Are all Preston Sturges movies Christmas movies secretly?
2. There is a theme song sung by children.
3. Bette Davis is playing Apple Annie.



4. There is a new angle with the Dude's girlfriend who wants to settle down and live a quiet life.
5. Columbo is in it.
6. Columbo suddenly starts narrating about half an hour into the movie.
7. Annie is secretly classy and you can tell this because she listens to classical music.



8. There are dozens of little details that catch your attention like the argument between two crooks pretending to be gentlemen over who gets to be the Postmaster General versus the Secretary of the interior.
9. You have this simple story of rags to fake riches at the center of the movie so even when you lose track of the Dave the Dude story or the story with the reporters in the closet or the story of the Count and the Consul General, you get the big picture.

The plot pieces fit together so nicely, it's like a puzzle solving itself.

Couldn't give it less than 4 stars.

Lady for a Day (1933)

Frank Capra directed this classic story about a poor woman who is turned into a lady in order to fool her daughter's fiance. The charm of this movie is in the play between, on the one hand, the frank class-consciousness of the idea that a poor woman has to be dressed up and coached by people in order to "pass" as a rich woman (obviously, poor and rich aren't just about how much money you have) and, on the other hand, the revelation that the fine character of this humble woman makes her a lady in the true sense of the word.



That is the closest thing to a paper for film class that I've written since college.

I won't bore you with it any more.

I've watched this movie twice and I can't figure out why I haven't blogged it yet.

The great part is that the movie COULD be a drama, but, BUT, Apple Annie is transformed into a lady by Dave the Dude, a gangster who's very name tickles me. The combination of the gangster and his thugs, Apple Annie and her community of beggars and bums, and the Count (who she is trying to impress) and his entourage is classic comedy.

Four stars, will definitely watch again.

The Talk of the Town (1942)

I learned a new game from this movie. Next time you're walking down the street with a friend, the first one of you to spot a man with a beard should call out, "Beaver!" and lick their thumb. Some random girls walking down the street of the small town where this movie takes place get to yell beaver at Professor Lightcap (Ronald Colman). Professor Lightcap needs his beard, because until he grew one, women winked at him and people were prone to calling him "sonny."

This is a fun but also very long movie. I can't remember exactly how long it was, and it may not really have been much longer than two hours, but it felt long. It just kept going and going. Not without a purpose, though. At the beginning of the movie local semi-political activist Leopold Dilg (Grant) is indicted for arson (someone has burned down the town mill!) and murder (a man has died in the fire!). Leopold escapes from jail and makes it to a rental house owned by Nora Shelley (Jean Arthur). After a bit of craziness, she agrees to hide him until his lawyer can help him. The new renter, prominent law professor Lightcap, shows up 12 hours earlier than expected, though, and hilarity ensues.

Why Grant's last name is Dilg is beyond me. Leopold about his name: "Stop saying 'Leopold' like that, tenderly. It sounds funny. You can't do it with a name like Leopold"

One of the reasons I get a kick out of this movie, is that for the first portion of it, the professor sits around having discussions about the law with Leopold, who he is introduced to as Joseph the gardener. He is so pleased to have met a philosophical gardener that he can almost suppress his condescending tone when talking to him. (The professor often struggles to suppress this tone, for example when he proposes to Miss Shelley by telling her he has an opening for an important job in Washington. It would be “more than a secretary…It would be an important job for life…”) The professor is so taken with Joseph the gardener that he even takes the time to pick up a special order of borscht with a raw egg mixed in for him during a trip to town, because he knows that Joseph will be beside himself with joy when he gets the borscht. Here are the professor and Leopold bonding over chess...



Unfortunately for Leopold, the borscht leads to his downfall with the professor. As Professor Lightcap unwraps the newspaper from around the bottle of borscht, he sees Leopold's face on the front page of the paper. He has been tricked by Leopold and Miss Shelley! As the fine upholder of the law that he is, the professor goes right inside to call the police, leading to the following very calmly delivered but very emotional dialogue...

Leopold: "Well, here we have the two schools of thought, Professor, this time in action. That telephone to you means law and order, and to me…well, I've got to stop you using that telephone, with violence if necessary."
Professor Lightcap: "Yes, I see. That’s bad. I have a very warm feeling for you Joseph, but I must use this telephone."
Leopold: "And if you do, Professor, and I’m as fond of you as a brother, I’ll be compelled to knock you down."

Can you feel then tension between these two great friends? See the tension below...



Anyways, of course the Professor uses the telephone, Leopold knocks him out, and all kinds of new craziness ensues, including Miss Shelley's confusion over which man to pick.

Bonus: The professor and Miss Shelley arrive home with their borscht to find Leopold cooking, wearing a lovely women's apron with a giant bow over the butt. Apparently Cary Grant also thinks this scene is a great bonus, because we get to watch him check out his own butt.

Three stars, I think, and I'm sure I will watch it again. And not just because I own it!