Day Two Hundred and Thirty-four - Charade, "For crying out loud... Audrey, you slay me with my own desire."

Where the rest of the world is enamored with Breakfast at Tiffany's, I think I prefer this Audrey most of all. She's sophisticated, witty... of course, very lovely... and has the best lines that run contrary to what you would expect in conversations concerning stolen gold, murder, and espionage.

And there's Cary Grant, too! Double trouble!

Set in Paris of the 60's, Audrey is the jilted widow of a man who seems to have been both a spy and a thief. Of course, she didn't know that when she married him, and was about to divorce the cad when she managed to escape the marriage the old fashioned way... he died.

Or rather, he was murdered, by persons unknown.

Having just returned from a ski holiday with a friend, she finds her husband has been killed, her apartment shuttered and divested of all property, and a fortune she never knew she had twisting in the wind somewhere. She's not the only one curious as to what's going on, though, as not only does the Paris police have questions, but also the CIA (Walter Matthau) and quite a few ruffians (in the form of James Coburn, George Kennedy, and Ned Glass).

If that's not enough, she's assisted and/or possibly hindered by a man of many names and trades, but who happens to be played by the always debonair Cary Grant. Within the confines of the film, the two of them alternately swoon and snap at each other for the duration as Grant's Peter (or Alexander or Adam or...) seems to be working for all parties, most especially himself.

I love this film for every scene but one.

From the moment we meet Audrey's Regina Lampert, we fall in love... which is standard procedure for anything she does... and watching her go from scared widow to giddy adventurer and back again is a delight. Of course she is a delight to watch, but she's not just an empty dress as her wit and good humor are almost always about her, even as her violent suitors begin to drop like so many flies.

And Grant? Well, Grant can carry just about any film as we've seen before. Sure, the one scene that I just cannot stand is his comical clothes-on shower scene as he tries to deflect Audrey's attempts at seduction... I mean, honestly, who wouldn't need a cold shower after any of her attentions? I could almost forgive him if it wasn't so ridiculous and terribly unfunny. He almost loses me again when he gives her a goofy face during the falling action (ugh!), but I survived... in part thanks to Audrey's reaction when she catches up in the conversation.

While the supporting cast isn't numerous, the names they got were great. Sure, James Coburn is a little hammy as Tex, but I really enjoyed Walter Matthau as Bartholomew, the CIA contact who keeps popping back up to warn Reggie. He does a great job of keeping her (and her romance with Peter... or Alexander... or Adam) off balance.

It's also fun to have George Kennedy in a much more malicious role than I'm used to seeing him in (like in is work in The Naked Gun series). While his fight with Grant on the Paris rooftops is silly, it's still a great scene between them.

The mystery itself needed a few more references so it didn't come as such a shock when the whereabouts of the fortune were revealed... especially since they emphasized the dental appointment a little too much, but it flows pretty naturally once it does start rolling. It just seems a bit too convenient a wrap up... especially considering other, better heist movies like To Catch A Thief.

Charade is also notable for its almost Hitchcockian shots, such as the shadowed dialogue scene just after Reggie returns from being interrogated the first time... and the morgue scene with the POV shot from the corpse's perspective.

When it comes down to it, though, Charade is a dazzingly film. Not quite up to the levels of perfection it probably could have been, but Audrey is in fine form and Grant only just below his normal levels of charm. I can't really blame him for that, though, as it seemed more an issue of writing than anything else. There are a few plot holes unfilled and character threads left dangling, but nothing too egregious.

Definitely worth the watch, I think... especially if you're a fan of classic suspense films.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-two - Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, "It's always the Nazis... unless it's a dame."

I want to love Steve Martin and Carl Reiner's Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, but I find I can only like it.

As a high concept parody of Film Noir, DMDWP is a fun send up to the old detective movies of the black and white era, even going so far as to feature direct cameos from a dozen or more Noir films with high profile actors such as Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Veronica Lake, Ingrid Bergman, Vincent Price, and more.

It's hard to call them true cameos, though, as they're really clever little pastiches of scenes ripped directly from films like Notorious, White Heat, and The Lost Weekend. While the composites and cuts that bring Martin's character Rigby Reardon together with these classic film stars in their own pictures are often noticeably rough, they're still well enough done to only prove a minor distraction.

Sadly, what proves to be a major distraction is the scriptwriting that tries to tie the dozen or more mystery films from yesteryear together with DMDWP often leads to flat and random jokes about stale bread or fake names.

I think the worst for me was when Rigby tumbles into White Heat with James Cagney. While it was mildly funny to see Martin in drag trying to fake as Cagney's mother, the movie swiftly takes advantage of the prison break in White Heat and Cagney shouts out the wrong name. Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember the new name being lampshaded at all by Martin and it's forgotten in the heat of the moment by a quick cut to Rachel Ward and the third iteration of her "bullet sucking" gag.

Like many detective films, the story meanders wherever it wants to, only more so thanks to the device of the classic film inserts. Each time, it returns the audience to the main plot and the dangerous romance between Martin and Ward to maintain some semblance of continuity, but thanks to both the confusing film devices and weakly arcing narrative, it never feels cohesive or whole.

But that's a part of the joke, too, as many pulp detective novels and films had silly twists and superfluous characters that fluttered in and out of the stories they had brief moments in. I like that meta quality, but it never really lets the film settle into something great. The concept dominates the film instead of supporting it.

Still, as cheesy as it gets overall, I did really enjoy seeing Martin and Reiner (along with third writer, George Gipe) string all this disparate scenes from film after film into one cornball of a Noir sendup. I just wish it was a strong as yet another Noir parody... The Naked Gun.

Unfortunately, lot of these movies have been forgotten over the past fifty years, even though they star some of the greatest (or most recognizable) actors of the century.

To be honest, I had never even heard of The Bribe, but I suddenly want to track it down to see the real story by Vincent Price's Latin American misadventure... and the same goes for Lana Turner in Johnny Eager and Joan Crawford in Humoresque.

Back to the film at hand, though, at the very least DMDWP makes me laugh quite a bit and at odd times. It takes the essence of Film Noir... crime, violence, and thinly veiled sexual tension... and works with the style to make trope jokes that hit well enough.

When you make your movie title into a Chekov's Gun, though, you really should deliver on it more than a single third act line.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Two Hundred and Five - People Will Talk, "But then, they always do."

That Cary Grant was, most probably, the single most charming and beguiling actor of his era is undeniable in my opinion. The man was a powerhouse of presence and some of the greatest of classic films came over the span of his career.

There are actually quite a few Cary Grant films up on Netflix and for that I'm glad, as I probably would've never been exposed to half of them through normal channels, partially because I've given up cable/satellite with the likes of TCM and AMC which occasionally show some classic films but certainly not all of them.

Personally, my favorite is To Catch a Thief, but that's not why I'm blogging tonight. No, I'm typing furiously away thanks to one of his lesser known works, People Will Talk.

I find People Will Talk to be oddly interesting... not because it's a great film, by any standard, but because Grant manages to pull it along by sheer force of his charm alone. The plot meanders, the conflicts and weak and easily dealt with, and the chemistry between Grant's and Jeanne Crain's characters, well, I wouldn't believe it if it were done by any other person.

I mean, honestly, it's a "love at first sight" situation that is never really resolved, and only from the Miss Higgins' (Crain) perspective, but they call stark attention to it. It's plainly said and we really have no idea why or how Grant's Dr.Praetorius fell for a desperate woman, but through calm, husky timbre, he manages to smooth it all over and away.

Then there's the issue of Hume Cronyn's weaselly Professor Elwell who seems to have it in for Dr.Praetorius from the start. He spends the film trying to dig up dirt to get Praetorius fired but, of course, only seems to make himself out to be a petty monster thanks to a climax tribunal in which the good doctor's constant companion, the mysterious Shunderson (Finlay Currie), bares all and takes the wind out of the proceedings... breaking the tension of him having been an oddity for the majority of the film.

Really, I love Hume Cronyn, and I applaud him his professionalism here, but this was not his best role, both in terms of actual screen time or likability. In my own opinion, I preferred his performance in the remake of 12 Angry Men, but that's just me.

It's funny, there's really not much meat to this movie. Nor laughs. Nor romance, though they do try with "magic shots" of Grant and Crain in the sweet embrace of a kiss.

The scandals that the film tries to shop around with (Marrying an already pregnant woman, practicing medicine without hanging a shingle, killing a man who was presumed dead by the man who served sentence for killing him the first time) could've been explored with much more depth and screen time, never really materializing... instead they're pretty much glazed over with barely a thought, and that's a disservice.

That said, Grant still managed to keep my attention throughout the entire film in that hypnotic way that only he could do.

It's no To Catch a Thief, mind you, not by a long shot... nor even close to Arsenic and Old Lace... but there are worse ways to spend an evening.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hundred and Forty-one - I Was A Male War Bride, "An ounce of Cary's charm with a thimbleful of plot."

Despite what I am about to type in this post, I love Cary Grant. Arsenic and Old Lace is a grand old time and To Catch A Thief is about as cool as 50's could ever get. I think it's a tossup between him and George Clooney when it comes to debonair charm in my book.

Yes, I realize that I'm riling up the Gosling hordes out there, but I calls'em like I sees'em.

That said, I was a bit bummed out by I Was A Male War Bride... especially since the crux of the title doesn't really factor into the movie until the last twenty minutes or so.

For the majority of the film, French Captain Rochard (Grant) and American Lieutenant Gates (Ann Sheridan) are at each other's throats. Apparently there is ample history between them previous to the start of the film and most of what we're privy to is an almost botched mission into occupied Germany after the end of World War Two to find a black marketeer and trade his underground art or gold bullion or those vast stores of American Cigarettes and Nylons that the Gestapo seemed to have in limitless supply.

Whatever.

The point is, they suffer through disaster after disaster together, needling one another along the way. Of course they're utterly in love with each other. There's no other explanation as to why Sheridan instantly goes to tears over coffee when Grant washes his hands of her after she has him hauled off to jail, as a black marketeer, himself.

And that's a good hour of film, ladies and gentlemen, just leading up to the fact that they really love one another... a discovery they make after several precocious German kinderschitzen send a sleeping Grant barreling into a hale bale on a motorcycle without a driver. Sure, it helps that they timidly share kisses after (Grant and Sheridan, not he and the children), but it's all cheap slapstick and tame foreplay.

But, what should I expect? It was 1949, after all. It would take five more years before they could even hint at sex with the fireworks spectacle of To Catch a Thief.

I guess I'm just disappointed that the whole "have to masquerade as a woman to pass as a war bride" bit is all of ten minutes on the back end. What could have been a wonderful gender bender comedy only manages to capitalize on it's title for a few mild jokes at the expense of both the Army and Navy... and Ann Sheridan is entirely too smug about all of the trials and tribulations she gets to put her new husband through.

Maybe it's a case of comeuppance for all the hundreds of years of gender inequality, now that women were officers and it's the men who were camp followers (well, in this one case anyway), but still... everything she went through, he suffered just the same, but worse.

As far as classic films goes... and I think it's a stretch to call it "classic" as opposed to just old... as far as classic films go, it's alright. I Was A Male War Bride has a few entertaining examples of Cary's unique aplomb and comedic timing, but his conflicts (and attraction) with Ann Sheridan are spurious at best, and the near constant beating he takes over the last half of the movie just stretches credulity beyond belief.

I mean, I'm an Army Brat... I know about the Army and it's bureaucracy. This was Keystone-Freaking-Kops.

Plus, Cary Grant as a Frog with the single most unbelievable French Accent in existence? Yeah, no, thank you.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~