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Tag: Cary Grant

  • To Catch a Thief: Danielle

    My lord. It’s been quite a while hasn’t it?

    There are many things to say about To Catch a Thief.

    The scenery is certainly worth a rapturous comment or two. The color photography more so. Cary Grant’s furrowed brow (also making frequent appearances in Suspicion, Notorious, North by Northwest and maybe even Father Goose) deserves a discussion of its own. And there is no reason why Grace Kelly’s Philadelphian lilt alone (simultaneously aristocratic and mischievous) shouldn’t inspire a few spontaneous collages, novels, fashion editorials, interior design ideas, and new kinds of martinis.

    Oh Yes. There are many things to say. But I shall say only one:

    Isn’t Danielle Foussard a lovely little thing?

    Wait, wait, wait. But isn’t Grace Kelly the Hitchcockian towhead of choice?

    Well yes.

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  • The Bachelor & the Bobby Soxer

    Apologies:
    1. I apologize for the interlaced video.
    2. I apologize for the lapse in posting. I was lazing about at the beach

    Dear readers,

    Your day is about to be made. I have a glorious treat for you.

    It is something many writers and directors strive for, but few ever attain.

    It is the perfect comedic scene, and it is in The Bachelor & the Bobby Soxer from 1947 starring Cary Grant, Shirley Temple, and Myrna Loy.

    Of note: Grant also exercised his dramatic muscles as an angel in The Bishop’s Wife the same year. In 1948 he was back to being his funny flustered self in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, also with Myrna Loy. Coincidentally all three of these movies were main players in the Richardson VHS rotation. After Blandings Grant didn’t make another good movie until To Catch A Thief in 1955. My apologies if you like I Was a Male War Bride.

    In Bachelor Grant plays Richard Nugent, a fancy bachelor artist who frequently finds himself in trouble with the law. The latest judge deciding his fate is Margaret Turner, an unimpressed cynic played by Myrna Loy. Loy lets Nugent go with only a warning, and off he goes to guest lecture at a high school, the very same high school that Margaret’s teenage sister Susan attends! Susan is a melodramatic bobby soxer played by a teenage Shirley Temple (she lucked out with the perfect combination of cuteness & sex appeal. Everything you would want your teenage Shirley Temple to be).

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  • Bringing Up Baby: Susan’s laugh


    *Two lame disclaimers: 1) The audio is doing something weird, 2) I sound like I’m barely alive

    This clip is from a chunk of perfection disguised as the 1938 screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby directed by Howard Hawks.  This was the second of four films that Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant would star in together (the first being the incredible Sylvia Scarlett which I’ll have to do a post on soon. The others being the under appreciated Holiday and the over appreciated The Philadelphia Story ).

    In the film Hepburn plays perhaps the greatest woman cinema has ever seen: Susan Vance, the whimsical, crazy, fearless, and unbelievably fun girl you wish was your best friend. Susan sets her sights on David Huxley (Cary Grant), a timid paleontologist who is trying his damndest to secure a million dollar donation to his museum from Susan’s stodgy old rich lady aunt, Mrs. Carlton Random. Lots of things happen,  a leopard named Baby is involved, some Brontosaurus bones, a dog named George, yadayadayada, and a masterpiece of screwball comedy is born. Slapstick perfection with dialogue by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde to rival my love Garson Kanin. Every line is golden.

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