Madame Butterfly (1932)

   "...the Japanese settings are almost always pretty..."

With Sylvia Sidney

Madame Butterfly - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"The plot of this film is taken from the Puccini opera and the incidental music is by the composer, but it does not attempt to be a reproduction of the opera.  The story is not very suitable for this new medium, and though the long-drawn tragedy might be bearable if it were expressed in music or poetry, without any such embellishment it is apt to be painfully pathetic.  Nevertheless, Miss Sylvia Sidney, who plays the part of the Japanese girl, acts with a grace and delicacy which are a great relief from this prolonged assault upon our emotions.  And the Japanese settings are almost always pretty; an admirable use is made of what Swinburne called "the fortuitous frippery of Fusi-yama."  Moreover, Miss Sidney fits so well into the setting that all the purely Japanese parts of the film have a certain style and consistency.  But the intrusion of the American lieutenant (Mr. Cary Grant) has as disturbing an effect on the film as he had on the unfortunate Madame Butterfly.  In fact, the inarticulate sentimentality of all the American characters seems to have been nicely calculated to sound a jarring note in this carefully constructed world of oriental conversion, and nothing is done to accommodate these two modes of feeling."

- The Times (London)

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Number 7 - Madame Butterfly (Lobby Card Style)

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Every Girl Should Be Married (1948)

   "...a talent for quietly underplaying comedy."

With Betsy Drake.

Every Girl Should Be Married - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Newcomer Betsy Drake seems to have studied, but not learned, the tricks and inflections of the early Hepburn.  Her exaggerated grimaces supply only one solid laugh - when Hero Grant mimics them cruelly and accurately.  In the past, Cary Grant has shown a talent for quietly underplaying comedy.  In this picture, he has trouble finding comedy to play."

-  Time Magazine

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Number 53 - Every Girl Should Be Married (Lobby Card Style)

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Father Goose (1964)

   "...an extremely accomplished craftsman... "

With Leslie Caron.

Father Goose - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Normally, I am less than enthusiastic about the way fantasy and reality are blended in Hollywood comedies.  I must say I found the mixture in Father Goose very engaging.  The film was co-authored by Peter Stone (who also wrote Grant's recent success Charade) and directed by Ralph Nelson (Lilies of the Field).  Both men appear to have an unusual flair for combining tongue-in-cheek wackiness with honest human insight to produce a very palatable entertainment package.  

The difference between Grant and most other old-line movie stars, who also essentially played themselves on the screen, is that he is an extremely accomplished craftsman and also has a highly developed sense of how to choose a script that does well by him and that he can do well by.  I thought that Miss Caron was delightful in a role that was an off-beat combination of propriety, gumption and earthly good sense."

- Moira Walsh, America

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Number 71 - Father Goose (Lobby Card Style)

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Film Review Series #1: The Bishop's Wife By Bosley Crowther December 10th, 1947

 The Bishop's Wife ,

Starring Cary Grant, David Niven, Loretta Young, Opens at Astor

By Bosley Crowther

Dec. 10, 1947

With David Niven.

Emissaries from heaven are not conspicuously exceptional on the screen, the movies having coyly incarnated any number of these supernatural types, ordained by their fanciful creators to right the wrongs of this world (not to mention the bookkeeping errors that seem to occur up above). And certainly communion with angels is traditional at Christmastime, which is the season when most of us mortals need angelic reassurance anyhow. So there is nothing especially surprising about the miracle that occurs in Samuel Goldwyn's "The Bishop's Wife," which opened last night at the Astor—except that it is superb.And that is very surprising, in view of the realistic fact that it is a sentimental whimsey of the most delicate and dangerous sort. All of us know that angels don't walk the earth like natural men—and definitely not in the image of that debonair rascal, Gary Grant. And most of us have some dark misgivings about the tact of the makers of films when they barge into the private area of a man's communication with his God.But you need have no anxieties in the case of "The Bishop's Wife." It is as cheerful and respectful an invasion of the realm of conscience that we have seen. And it comes very close to being the most enchanting picture of the year — a judgment to which its many merits will shortly make a strong bid. That is because its incursion is on a comparatively simple and humble plane and its whimsey is sensitively syphoned from the more human and humorous frailties of the flesh.We are not going to make an analysis of the many subtle comments in this tale of a full-bodied guardian angel who answers a young bishop's prayer for guidance and spiritual comfort in the midst of a crisis in his life. We are not going to state any morals which this charmingly casual angel proves in drawing the bishop's wrought attention from a new cathedral to the richer services of life—and, particularly, to a fresh fulfillment of his family responsibilities.

We are not going to mouth about these matters, because the picture itself refrains—and that is one of the most endearing of its many endearing young charms.In shaping this warm and winning fable from a Robert Nathan book, Robert Sherwood and Leonardo Bercovici have written with beautiful belief that a point clearly made in performance doesn't have to be hit a dozen times nor a moral quietly manifested put into a hundred solemn words.

And so there is no heavy pounding of the lesson of humanity, of the futility of ostentation, of the special possessiveness of a man's love. Nor is there any such pounding in Henry Koster's directorial style.Smoothly and with artful invention he has induced Mr. Grant to give one of his most fluent and beguiling performances as the angel, "Dudley," who fixes things. And he has got out of David Niven a deliciously dexterous and droll characterization of a sorely pressed young bishop who can't quite cotton to this messenger from on high. Elsa Lanchester, too, is encouraged in an exquisitely faceted role of a twitterly little housemaid who flirts with this angelic gent, and Monty Woolley is actually human as an old dodo who is morally re-inspired. James Gleason, Sara Haden and Gladys Cooper are rich in smaller parts. Weakness is only evident in Loretta Young's unctuousness as the bishop's wife. She is the one artificial, inconsistent and discordant note.Of course, there are probably some people who are going to say that this film encourages a futile illusion with its hope of miraculous aid. But they—if they do—will be missing its most warmly inspiring point which is—but wait a minute That's for you to recognize and enjoy. We cannot recommend you to a more delightful and appropriate Christmas show.

With Loretta Young and Monty Woolley.

THE BISHOP'S WIFE;

screen play by Robert E. Sherwood and Leonardo Bercovici;

from the novel by Robert Nathan;

directed by Henry Koster;

produced by Samuel Goldwyn for release through RKO Radio Pictures. Inc.

At the Astor.

Dudley . . . . . Cary Grant

Julia Brougham . . . . . Loretta Young

Henry Brougham . . . . . David Niven

Professor Wutheridge . . . . . Monty Woolley

Sylvester . . . . . James Gleason

Mrs. Hamilton . . . . . Gladys Cooper

Matilda . . . . . Elsa Lanchester

Mildred Cassaway . . . . . Sara Haden

Debby Brougham . . . . . Karolyn Grimes

Maggenti . . . . . Tito Vuolo

Mr. Miller . . . . . Regis Toomey

Mrs. Duffy . . . . . Sara Edwards

Miss Trumbull . . . . . Margaret McWade

Mrs. Ward . . . . . Ann O'Neal

The Grass is Greener (1960)

   "...a handsome production in Technicolor with lovely shots of England... "

The Grass is Greener - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"The best thing about The Grass is Greener is its title, which fits so well an inexplicable set of circumstances.  The worst thing about the picture is that producer-director Stanley Donen forgot he was making a movie, and in spite of all its glitter and glamorous cast, this film is awfully static and talky - and no fresher and greener than those comedies that used to turn up on our stages regularly in the thirties.  

The script that Hugh and Margaret Williams wrote from their popular London stage comedy is only so-so funny, but Donen has given his picture a handsome production in Technicolor with lovely shots of England and the interior and exterior of Grant's elegant mansion.  Brighter than the dialogue is the musical score stemming from Noel Coward's songs.  It's too bad Coward couldn't have written the wisecracks too."

- Philip T. Hartung, The Commonweal

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Number 68 - The Grass is Greener (Lobby Card Style)

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Alice in Wonderland (1933)

   "...mild fun... trying to identify the Big Names hidden behind turtle shells and teddy-bear skins."

With The Mock Turtle costume.

Alice in Wonderland - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Why mince matters? Alice in Wonderland is, to my sober (despite repeal) judgment, one of the worst flops of the cinema.  Paramount's first mistake was in attempting it.  The only person in Movieland to have done it is Walt Disney.  Mary Pickford, who once contemplated doing it, was right when she said that "Alice" should be made only in cartoons.  

So - with a fine script (Joe Mankiewicz and William Cameron Menzies), delightful music (Dmitri Tiomkin), a splendid director (Norman McLeod), and about fifty of our best actors and actresses, the picture, when it isn't dull, is still utterly uninspired. 

English children who still read Alice in Wonderland may get a mild kick out of it.  I doubt if our young sophisticates will.  It's a cinch that all the grown ups will get is the mild fun of trying to identify the Big Names hidden behind turtle shells and teddy-bear skins.  Even when they do occasionally recognize a voice they will still wonder why all these high salaries were hidden beneath bushels of props.  Extras, or even children, would have been adequate to most of the parts.  No acting was required.  Indeed production costs could have been cut tremendously by letting cheap actors play the parts and then hiring Big Names to register five minutes of dialogue easily dubbed in.  

The second mistake was in choosing a young lady to play the five or six-year-old part of Alice.  Charlotte Henry is a comely youngster with an intelligent face, who looks as though she would be more interested in Vance Hoyt's nature studies in Script than in Fairyland.  She tries hard to look wonder-eyed but can't quite make it.  And with all our wonderful kid actors!  

Even so there was still a chance to make a picture of fairylike charm.  In all the arts there is no medium that lends itself to fantasy like the movie camera.  By soft focus, shooting through silk, and other technical tricks, scenes can be given an elusive dreamlike quality that eloquently visualizes the subjective mind.  Alice goes to sleep and dreams her trip to Wonderland, but we see both her and her dream in hard reality, with the flat lighting and sharp focus of the objective world.  Never for a moment are we in dreamland; we are on Stage Four, witnessing the technical staff and prop boys doing their stuff.  Even much of this is bad.  When Alice flies through the air, she is obviously hanging by a wire (remember how well that was done in Peter Pan - also by Paramount?) and when she is falling down the well, she is still hanging by a wire.  Nor are her skirts blown while falling.  It's hard to write a review like this, for practically everybody who had anything to do with the picture is a Scripter, but when a picture is a flop, it's a flop, and it's silly to alibi.  The biggest mistake was in undertaking it at all."

- Bob Wagner, Script

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Number 13 - Alice in Wonderland (Lobby Card Style)

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Kiss Them For Me (1957)

   "...Cary Grant delivers some sardonic wisecracks very well..."

With Jayne Mansfield.

Kiss Them For Me - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Kiss Them For Me, coincidentally enough, is also about some military men intent on staging a party.  The party givers in this case are three naval aviators who arrive in wartime San Francisco determined to devote all their brief French leave from a carrier to wine, women and song.  

The color-and-CinemaScope movie is based on a novel written during World War II and made into a (not very successful) play soon after that.  

By 1957, its attitudes are curiously dated. For one example, the enemy seems to be the civilian population.  For another, the fliers behave alternately like post-adolescent Peck's Bad Boys and like swashbuckling heroes with equally juvenile motivation.  Though Cary Grant delivers some sardonic wisecracks very well,  he seems a little old to be acting so irresponsibly.  

The picture also has leading-woman trouble.  Fashion model Suzy Parker, who plays the enigmatic heroine, is lovely to look at but can't act; while director Stanley Donen has allowed Jayne Mansfield, in the role that was Judy Holliday's stepping stone to fame, to be broadly and unamusingly vulgar."

- Moira Walsh, America

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Number 63 - Kiss Them For Me (Lobby Card Style)

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Charade (1963)

   "...an absolute delight in which Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn schottische about with evident glee."

With Audrey Hepburn.

Charade - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Not since John Huston's Beat the Devil has there been such a gay romp as Charade.  Huston himself recently tried something similar in The List of Adrian Messenger, but the comedy thriller is a chancy little form, and he could not duplicate that first brilliant success.  More credit, then, to producer-director Stanley Donen who has brought to the screen an absolute delight in which Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn schottische about with evident glee.  

It is characteristic of the generally civilized and witty fun of the entire film, and somehow entirely appropriate that Miss Hepburn should suddenly look into a can of Calox toothpowder and ask Grant if he can tell heroin by its taste.  He tastes and says: "Heroin! Peppermint-flavored heroin!"  Charade merits not merely audiences, but addicts.

- Newsweek

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Number 70 - Charade (Lobby Card Style)

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Operation Petticoat (1959)

   "... one of the trickiest acting jobs of [Cary Grant's] long and brilliant career."

With Tony Curtis.

Operation Petticoat - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Though he gets many laughs Cary Grant plays an essentially straight part and theatrical pros will recognize it as one of the trickiest acting jobs of his long and brilliant career.  Throughout every inch of it, he makes you feel that this is a dedicated captain determined to sail his ship again.  He makes all that follows seem funny instead of silly.  Curtis has an actor's field day with his flashy part, but under Blake Edwards' skilled direction, all the players make valuable contributions to the general hilarity." 

- Jack Moffitt, Hollywood Reporter

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Number 67 - Operation Petticoat (Lobby Card Style)

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