She Done Him Wrong (1933)

   "...as frank as an old Police Gazette, and much livelier and more picturesque."

With Mae West

She Done Him Wrong - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"She Done Him Wrong is something lustier, the overtly and successful predatory female against a colorful Bowery background.  It is as frank as an old Police Gazette, and much livelier and more picturesque.  It is an odd companion to be bracketed with Little Woman and State Fair  and Mama Loves Papa, but it belongs with them as a faithful bit of Americana.  Incidentally the overpowering Mae West personality shouldn't hide the fact that Lowell Sherman's direction figured pretty largely in the picture's effectiveness.

- National Board of Review Magazine

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Number 8 - She Done Him Wrong (Lobby Card Style)

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His Girl Friday (1940)

   "...one of those fast-moving and idyllic comedies in which the lovers behave like villains to each other..."

With Ralph Bellamy and Rosalind Russell.

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

"His Girl Friday" from a play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur" is a remake of The Front Page, the movie success of 1931 and stage hit of 1928.  The original has been changed this time into one of those fast-moving and idyllic comedies in which the lovers behave like villains to each other - sophisticated is the usual word for the genre.  Hildy Johnson has become a woman for this purpose.  She has been married to the fanatical editor and divorced from him because there was never time for love.  Coming to tell him she is going to marry a simple insurance man from Albany, she soon finds herself, against her will, back on her former job as reporter.  There follows the plot of The Front Page, with managing editor playing his tricks partly on the insurance man.  By the change the accent is shifted to the lovers' quarrel, and the original story loses much of its sense and punch.  Yet Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant give such entertaining performances that nobody in the roaring audience seems to notice the tastelessness, to say the least, of playing hide-and-seek with a man condemned to death.  The tragic elements of the original story are misused for boy-meets-girl nonsense.  Charles Lederer has written the new version with great skill and Howard Hawks has directed it with liveliness but with too great a concern for the deaf."  

- Franz Hoellering, The Nation

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The Philadelphia Story (1941)

   "...one of the few non-moronic pictures of the season."

With Ruth Hussey, James Stewart and Katharine Hepburn.

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

"The movie version of Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story is years ahead of most screen dialogue.  Audiences won't know what all of it means,  but it's time that picture scripts got a little ahead of their public instead of ten paces behind 'em.  I've noticed that audiences like a certain amount of dialogue which is over their heads.  Producers ought to try it oftener.  

The Philadelphia Story is the yarn of smart and semi-smart folks trying to cure their emotional and intellectual blindnesses and frustrations with alcohol, and it's amazing how well alcohol works in this picture.  The W.C.T.U. doesn't know it, but it ought to stop this film, because it sells liquor better than any million-dollar advertising campaigns.  Tracy Lord's (Miss Hepburn's) drinking in company with that poetic guy from that New York scandal sheet, Spy, is what clears the atmosphere of her mis-planned love for John Howard and paves the way for her remarriage with Cary Grant.  It takes a binge to cure Tracy of her gosh-awful goddessness and give her a good dose of clay feet.  

Perhaps the highest honors in the picture really go to James Stewart for his souse scene in Cary Grant's library.  Mr. Grant is good as always, and deserves credit for playing subdued; he was a hell-raiser before the story opened, and is now the wiser and somewhat chastened ex-husband of the hard, too-exacting Tracy.  

The Philadelphia Story is one of the few non-moronic pictures of the season."

- Don Herald, Scribner's Commentator

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Enter Madame! (1935)

    "There's music, music everywhere..."

With Elissa Landi

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

"Music's "in" for celluloid since the smash of Night of Love, so prepare for a deluge of temperamental opera singers on the screen as well as on Stage 2.  

Elissa Landi is about the most beautiful warbler you've seen (Mary Garden, please forgive me), and she sings magnificently, thanks to the smart dubbing of the Nina Koshetz voice.  Lovely 'Lissa is improving as an actress by leaps, and if sometimes she lands out-of-bounds in vivaciousness, I don't mind much.  

Gilda Varesi, author, starred in the play and though Miss Varesi collabed on the screen play, the yarn's tempo has been shifted from comedy drama to farce.  There's music, music everywhere, plus plenty of entertainment if you happen to be tone-deaf.  

Delia Robbia at twenty-five is a diva of world rep.  She surrounds herself with a mad, Sangercircus world which is shared by an entourage including a chef, maid and physician, all with ariaistic tendencies.  During a performance of "Tosca" in Italy, the soprano's train contacts a candle flame and tall-darknhandsome Cary Grant saves the lady from being scorched, though he himself is pretty well hotchacharred by love.  

Elissa and Cary marry and soon the guy finds himself spinning on a roundabout of concerts and tantrums.  Hubby wants to go to America, wifie promises to accompany him but signs for a tour at the last sec, so Cary goes home alone.  Elissa signs contract after contract, for she finds fame headier than marriage.  Cary threatens divorce, the songbird flies to America.  You guess the finale.  

Richard Bonelli sings Scarpia authoritatively.  Lynne Overman as the weary, pungent manager again proves his deft comedy talents.  He should draw longer assignments, for in a certain groove he's unsurpassed.  

Fast direction by Elliot Nugent is marred at times by overemphasis.  Camera work by Theodore Sparkuhl and William Mellor is distinguished.     

- Herb Sterne, Script

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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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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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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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Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)

  "...some of the elements of a fairy-tale.  But... ...terribly realistic. "

With Ginger Rogers.

Once Upon a Honeymoon - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"As the title indicates, Once Upon a Honeymoon has some of the elements of a fairy-tale.  But its background of human misery in a world going to pieces under the Nazis is terribly realistic.  The story is quite often gay and funny, but it is also quite often grim.  With deft touches, director-producer McCarey splashes laughter, suspense, romance and tragedy onto his canvas."

- Scholastic Magazine

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Number 42 - Once Upon a Honeymoon (Lobby Card Style)

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Suspicion (1941)

  "...the film is the equivalent of the book you can't put down."

With Joan Fontaine.

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

"Two thirds of Hitchcock's Suspicion is very good, and that is enough to make a thriller.  During that time Hitchcock used all his smoothness and his sharp eye for detail to build up a situation in which a loving wife (Joan Fontaine) is in danger of being poisoned by an equally loving but less trustworthy husband (Cary Grant).  A best friend (Nigel Bruce, as a chubby ass) has already, mysteriously, fallen by the way.  The fact that Hitchcock throws in a happy end during the last five minutes, like a conjurer explaining his tricks, seems to me a pity; but it spoils the film only in retrospect, and we have already had our thrills.  A steep cliff, a letter from an insurance company, a glass of milk at the bedside - on such details and on the equivocal looks that foreshadow murder, Hitchcock fixes a fascinated gaze.  So long as the magic lasts (there's a slow beginning, by the way) the film is the equivalent of the book you can't put down.

-  William Whitebait, The New Statesman and Nation

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The Bishop's Wife (1947)

 "...it is Cary Grant’s playing that rescues the role of the angel named Dudley from the ultimate peril..."

With Loretta Young.

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

"Robert Nathan’s early novel (1928), The Bishop’s Wife, has been revived by Samuel Goldwyn (with help on the script from Robert Sherwood and Leonardo Bercovici) to honor the current boom in cinema angels.  Unlike the majority of his predecessors, however, Mr. Nathan’s angel is not beyond descending to diabolical methods to achieve his heavenly purposes, and the gleam in his eye is scarcely seraphic. 

If the angel is considerably less tedious than most, it is, first of all, because the miracles he is called upon to perform are onerous neither to him nor to his audience.  A flick of the hand and a bottle of brandy refills perpetually; a smile and every woman within its range feels divinely beautiful.  Certain other of his feats, conceived with a heavier hand, are retrieved from disaster by the direction of Henry Koster who wisely refrains from bearing down full weight on the script.  But it is Cary Grant’s playing that rescues the role of the angel named Dudley from the ultimate peril of coyness.  With nothing more than a beaming countenance and an air of relaxation that is certainly not of this world, he achieves a celestial manner without so much of a hint of wings on his dark blue suit.  An expert cast is on hand to show by reflection what Cary Grant has refrained from making irksomely explicit.  David Niven’s prelate is a wistful and absent-minded character who is scarcely a match for Dudley.  As the Bishops’ wife, Loretta Young is sufficiently lovely to make even an angel fall; and in lesser roles Monty Woolley, James Gleason and Elsa Lanchester react to Dudley’s miraculous passage with characteristic gaiety.

The Bishop had prayed to God for guidance in how to separate Mrs. Hamilton, a rich parishioner, from sufficient money to build a cathedral.  God sent him Dudley and Dudley had soon resolved his dilemma by threatening Mrs. Hamilton with the name of her long-lost lover.  Now, Dudley convinces both her and the Bishop that God could better be served by abandoning the cathedral project in favor of helping the needy.  This is a refreshingly practical notion and comes with the lure of novelty from a screen which has heretofore thrown its weight – in the manner of The Bells of St. Mary’s – in favor of building churches.  For this reason alone The Bishop’s Wife should commend itself to the public." 

- Hermine Rich Isaacs, Theatre Arts Magazine

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Number 51 - The Bishop's Wife (Lobby Card Style)

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Hot Saturday (1932)

 "...describes the evolution of an idle bit of gossip in an average American community with considerable freshness and candor..."

With Nancy Carroll and Edward Woods.

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

"Small-town tongues are wagging and small-town eyes are watching that Brock girl from behind the drawn shades.  Hot Saturday, which is from Harvey Ferguson's novel, describes the evolution of an idle bit of gossip in an average American community with considerable freshness and candor, and in the main manages to survive a meandering script and some uneventful writing.  Nancy Carroll, as the girl caught in the net of malicious gossip, gives a lifelike portrayal; and she is acutely touching in the final episodes as she searches frantically for someone who will understand and believe her.  The denouement is unintentionally ambiguous, and a rather startling conclusion at that; for the girl runs of with the notorious libertine to a marriage in New York which, if one is to believe all the things people say about Romer Sheffield, will be merely theoretical.   

The title suggests the social activities of the young people on their day off, the dancing, cheap liquor and furtive amour with which they escape once a week from their routine labors.  Some may raise the criticism that the behavior in Hot Saturday is more typical of the years the novel appeared - than of the present.  

Ruth Brock, on this particular "hot Saturday", accompanies the crowd to Sheffield's place in the country.  Her young man, resenting Sheffield's attentions to the girl, quarrels with her.  When she is left alone in the millionaire's house for a few hours and arrives home in his car, the gossip-mongers go to work with a relish.  The accumulation of outraged virtues results in Ruth's dismissal from the bank and a violent scene at home.  Even her gentle, understanding sweetheart of school days turns against her.  

Edward Woods, as the malicious and resentful escort, gives the most satisfactory performance in support of Miss Carroll.  Cary Grant is a nonchalant young libertine as Sheffield, and Randolph Scott is solidly virtuous as the boyhood sweetheart.

 - Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times

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The Awful Truth (1937)

 "A great many funny things happen... maneuvered, to some extent, by Mr. Smith."

With Ralph Bellamy and Irene Dunne.

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

"The Awful Truth is one of those mile-a-minute comedies which never makes sense but which makes you giggle outrageously.  At the beginning Irene Dunne and Cary Grant are a young married couple on the verge of divorce; but they soon prove to be a couple of cut-ups who delight in bedeviling each other.  A great many funny things happen, most of which are maneuvered, to some extent, by Mr. Smith.  He is the biggest bone of contention.  Mr. Smith is a Scottish terrier.  

The dialogue is snappy, the action fast, and often furious, and Irene Dunne proves herself better as a comedienne than as the beautiful-but-dignified star she once was.

- Scholastic Magazine

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Wedding Present (1936)

 "...a new high in factual distortion."

With Joan Bennett.

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

"Newspaper work has taken it on the nose from the cinema on more than one occasion this season, but Wedding Present reaches a new high in factual distortion.  We do not wish to destroy the 'movie' myth about journalism, but we suggest that the situations of this photo-play are implausible, dissociated, undramatic, preposterous and dreary.  The film is not fortunate in its principals.  Cary Grant plays the crazy reporter turned editor in a lackadaisical manner, mouthing most of his lines and acting more like a dramatic caricature than a character.  If he is not walking through his lines in this production, we never saw that feat accomplished.  Joan Bennett, for her part, does little to stay the complete demoralization of the plot."

- Howard Barnes, New York Herald Tribune

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I'm No Angel (1933)

 "The casting of Cary Grant... was again another brilliant piece of dramatic awareness."

With Mae West.

I'm No Angel - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Ingenious casting had much to do with the success of I'm No Angel.  Although her control over her vehicles at Paramount was almost absolute, unlike Chaplin in a similarly favored position, Mae West did not depend on a weak supporting cast to magnify her own personality or call attention to her humor.  A strong cast, each one capable and playing his or her role with uncommon passion, lent a credibility to the film, a quality of balance and proportion which only the finest motion pictures attain.

The casting of Cary Grant in the role of the man who finally wins Tira's love was again another brilliant piece of dramatic awareness.  Cary as Jack Clayton has none of the characteristics about him that had previously attracted Tira to men.  When she meets Nat Pendleton (playing the trapeze artist) on her way to the hotel at the very start of the picture, she feels his muscles, and comments on them.  She makes a similar overt gesture with Davidson (playing the Chump) while the two are dancing in her hotel room.  But with Clayton all such pretension is dropped.  Supposedly not interested just in his money, as she had been with Kirk Lawrence, seemingly in love, she feels his muscles at the end of the picture just before the fade.  But in 1933 Cary Grant was narrow of line and thin of physique, not at all the Nat Pendleton image.  Tira, a lion tamer, is unaccountably drawn to him, but there is something slightly incredible about their union, incredible enough for the viewer to have the same impression as one has at the conclusion of She Done Him Wrong, Tira cannot stay with him forever; she is insatiable and immortal.  From this very subtle and almost unconscious impression, the viewer comes away with that same sense of awe before magnitude, talent and vibrance, which Chaplin managed only by weak casting as a crutch.  

No scene in I'm No Angel is extraneous.  It is interesting, compelling, and enjoyable throughout.  Some scenes are played with rare distinction, as that of Cary Grant's initial visit to Tira's apartment, when she decides to let Kent Taylor go, but wants Cary instead.  The camera takes a three-quarters shot as this conversation straggles to its conclusion, with both their minds on something other than what's being said.  Cary has placed a small photograph of Mae in his coat pocket, and with his hands plunged nervously into his trouser pockets, the suit coat jutting out towards Mae, their bodies swaying ever closer together as they talk, Mae mumbling, "You'll hear from me," much more is implied that could ever be shown."

- John Tuska, Views and Reviews

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Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

 "...a superb blend of horror and comedy..."

With Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre.

Arsenic and Old Lace - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"My favorite scene is the one from the picture Arsenic and Old Lace which begins with Cary Grant making the spine-chilling discovery that his two dear old maiden aunts are poisoners who have murdered some dozen men.  

The old ladies' sweetly matter-of-fact attitude toward their gruesome hobby is a superb blend of horror and comedy, and the scene develops uproariously.  

I was helpless with laughter as I watched Cary change from a normal young man to a decidedly dizzy one, talking to himself, staring into the window seat from which bodies mysteriously appeared and disappeared, and making various wild attempts to cope with the situation."

- Ida Lupino, Saturday Evening Post

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None But The Lonely Heart (1944)

   "...plays its ...hero so attentively and sympathetically..."

With Konstantin Shayne.

None But The Lonely Heart - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"None But The Lonely Heart, a story about the education of a young man in London's pre-war slums, is an unusually sincere, almost-good film and was made under unusually unexpected auspices.  Its star, Cary Grant, asked that it be made, and plays its far from Cary Grantish hero so attentively and sympathetically that I all but overlooked the fact that he is not well constituted for the role.  Its most notable player, Ethel Barrymore, seemed miscast too, but I was so soft as to be far more than satisfied by her beauty and authority.  Its director, Clifford Odets, who also turned Richard Llewellyn's novel into the screen play, is still liable to write - or preserve from the book - excessive lines like "dreaming the better man"; he suggests his stage background as well as his talent by packaging his bits too neatly; and his feeling for light, shade, sound, perspective, and business is too luscious for my taste.  But I believe that even if he doesn't get rid of such faults he will become a good director.  I base my confidence in him chiefly on  the genuine things about his faith in and love for people, which are as urgent and evident here as his sentimentalities; on two very pretty moments in the film, one of two drunken men playing with their echoes under an arch, the other of two little girls all but suffocated by their shy adoration of the hero; and on the curiously rich, pitiful, fascinating person, blended of Cockney and the Bronx, whom he makes of a London girl, with the sensitive help of June Duprez.  I suppose I should be equally impressed by the fact that the picture all but comes right out and says that it is a bad world which can permit poor people to be poor; but I was impressed rather because Odets was more interested in filling his people with life and grace than in explaining them, arguing over them, or using them as boxing gloves." 

- James Agee, The Nation

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The Howards of Virginia (1940)

 "...Grant meets the exigencies of a difficult role with more gusto than persuasion."

With Paul Kelly.

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

"Elizabeth Page's best seller of last year, The Tree of Liberty, comes to the screen as The Howards of Virginia.  Although using only a portion of the 985-page novel, Columbia still seems to have tackled a larger canvas than it could paint effectively, with the result that this cavalcade of Colonial and Revolutionary America, while ambitious, expensive, and generally interesting, comes to life all to infrequently. 

Adapted by Sidney Buchman  and directed by Frank Lloyd, the Howard saga is most effective in the sequences that recreate frontier life and manners as seen through the eyes of the woman who loves her husband while rebelling against his democratic ideas.  These sequences are impressive in their homely humor and realism, though much footage otherwise wasted inevitably pulls the emotional punches in the story of Matt's relationship with his wife and children.  

Obviously miscast, Cary Grant meets the exigencies of a difficult role with more gusto than persuasion.  Martha Scott follows her impressive screen debut in Our Town with a sincere if more conventional characterization.  That this history has been staged with exceptional fidelity, is due in part to the fact that its Williamsburg sequences were filmed on location in the historic city which was reconstructed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. as a $20,000,000 project to perpetuate America's past."

- Newsweek

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