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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Room For One More (1952)

   "...witty, debonair but always real."

With Oliver Blake and Frank Ferguson.

Room For One More - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Room For One More is a delightful domestic comedy, stunningly produced by Henry Blanke, and warmly directed by Norman Taurog.  

As the father, Cary Grant offers a sock performance, witty, debonair but always real.  Betsy Drake is superb as the young matron; pretty, serious and with a heart that never falters."

 - Hollywood Reporter

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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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Number 18 - Enter Madame!  (Lobby Card Style)

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Destination Tokyo (1943)

   "...Cary Grant gives one of the soundest performances of his career..."

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

"Even moviegoers who have developed a severe allergy for service pictures should find Destination Tokyo, the high among the superior films of the war.  Certainly, in technical exposition and sheer, harrowing melodrama, the Warner Brothers' newest tribute to the armed forces rates very near the top of the list.  

What with the film running two hours and fifteen minutes, just everything that could and does happen to an American submarine - short of an unhappy ending - occurs aboard the Copperfin.  

As the Copperfin's captain, Cary Grant gives one of the soundest performances of his career; and John Garfield, William Prince, Dane Clark, and the rest of the all-male cast are always credible either as ordinary human beings or extraordinary heroes.  

- Newsweek

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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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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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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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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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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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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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Houseboat (1958)

  "Grant’s performance is just about flawless."

With Sophia Loren.

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

“Grant’s performance is just about flawless.  With sure artistry, he seems unconscious of the farcical nature of the ridiculous events that overwhelm him.  Everything he does is made poignant by the worries of a man wounded by the repudiation of his children.  Slowly he learns to love them and his hurt grows deeper.  There is one beautiful scene of muted tenderness when he encourages his elder son to teach him to fish.  By so doing, he finds out the boy’s tendencies toward being a Peeping Tom, a thief and a sneak are all traceable to his worries over his mother’s death.  With well-concealed parental anxiety and complete absence of theatrical sentimentality.  Grant consoles the lonesome child with a quiet and moving discussion of immortality.”

- Jack Moffitt, Hollywood Reporter

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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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