Cooper: Diane, last night I dreamed I was eating a large, tasteless gumdrop,
and awoke to discover I was chewing on one of my foam disposable earplugs.
Perhaps I should consider moderating my nighttime coffee consumption.
-- "Twin Peaks" |
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What do you know. Now I'm going to be Maurice -- that's Belle's father -- instead of D'Arque in Disney's Beauty And The Beast. The sad part is that I'm old enough to be Belle's father in real life. So there you go. I'll be the singing (dancing?) crazy inventor guy whose foolishness leads to Belle being imprisoned by the Beast. That'll be in mid-November at a high school near you. If you live near the Round Lake.
Dan on 09.30.08 @ 07:42 PM CT [link] [No Comments]
Tonight the Cary Grant Project hits another pairing with Irene Dunne, "My Favorite Wife". Once again they're a married husband and wife who love each other but also have issues of being completely open and trusting of each other. They make a pretty entertaining couple. This time, she was on a deserted island with a hunk (Randolph Scott; "You'd do it for Randolph Scott. Randolph! Scott!") while he had her declared dead (after 7 years) and now has a new bride.
It's getting tougher to rank these things. But I can't put them all in the top 5. You'd have to go to the bottom 4 to get to the ones I'm not that keen to see again. And I might even watch them.
The Cary Grant Project goes way back to 1933 tonight, for "She Done Him Wrong". This is the Mae West movie where she said, "Why don't you come up some time and see me?" Cary Grant's role was pretty small -- in those days, he was doing half a dozen pictures a year -- but he was still the top-billed male. It's mostly about Mae West singing and tossing one-liners around and generally acting like a lady who indulges her desires. Perhaps one of the few time the leading lady was older than Cary Grant? (By 10 years in this case.)
In "The Bachelor And The Bobby-Soxer", Shirley Temple (yes, Shirley Temple) plays a high schooler infatuated with Cary Grant's artist. Well, who wouldn't be. I mean, I'm about the age Cary Grant was in this movie. And high school girls think I'm the bee's knees. Daddy-o. Wacky hijinks (and pratfalls and mugging) ensue when her (older) sister (25 years older in real life), who happens to be a judge, pressures Cary Grant into going along with the kid's infatuation. As any sensible judge would. A 40-year-old guy with a 17-year-old girl??? Hilarious! Actually, it is pretty funny.
Can I get a napkin, please?
Please?
Dan on 09.21.08 @ 06:44 PM CT [link] [No Comments]
"Charade" is a great late-era Cary Grant movie. It's a fun suspense thriller about stolen war loot that some American soldiers planned to split up some years later -- the comically small amount of $250K, and there were 5 guys in on it! But it's doubly good for having Audrey Hepburn as the leading lady. She's like the female Cary Grant, at least in the way I enjoy both their work. This movie had some other heavy hitters, such as Walter Matthau, George Kennedy and James Coburn. This was Cary Grant's 4th (and final) time being directed by Stanley Donen.
A jolly old divorce comedy -- from the '30s! -- is today's entry in the Cary Grant Project. In "The Awful Truth", Cary Grant and Irene Dunne (in the first of 3 movies together) experience a comical, fast-paced 3 months waiting for their divorce to be finalized. She latches on to Ralph Bellamy (in the first of two movies he appeared in with Cary Grant). while he finds himself with an heiress. And they both spend a great amount of energy playing with their shared-custody dog. I'm pretty sure this will go into the top 5 when I update the rankings after 4 more shows.
"Gunga Din" is the kind of action-adventure movie I think of when I hear "Douglas Fairbanks". I don't know if that's correct, since I don't know what Douglas Fairbanks movies I've seen, but there you go. In this one, our heroes are with the British army in India, mostly being rowdy and enjoying the company of their buddies, until they stumble across a murderous cult that needs to be put down. Gunga Din was an Indian waterboy who served the British and dreamed of being a soldier like them. This is one of those unusual movies in which Cary Grant (born in Bristol) was actually playing an Englishman.
For my next show (which will be #29 in the series), I'll be Monsieur D'Arque in "Disney's Beauty And The Beast". In the movie, the guy who did his voice is the guy who played Dougie Milford, the mayor's brother, in "Twin Peaks". How about that!
Dan on 09.13.08 @ 01:17 PM CT [link] [No Comments]
Today's Cary Grant movie is "Bringing Up Baby". This one I've seen many times. There's a leopard and a dinosaur bone, and golf, and cross-dressing, and Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn wading across a tiny creek -- only to find that it was much deeper than they expected. It's so screwy. It's screwbally!
This was the 1st of 5 films Cary Grant was in directed by Howard Hawks and the 2nd of 4 in which he co-starred with Kate Hepburn.
The 13th entry in the Cary Grant Project is "Father Goose". (Hey! Only 60 more films to go!) This might make a good double feature with "Operation Petticoat". Once again, Cary Grant finds himself in a situation with a bunch of girls who are generally in the way and he wishes they'd just be gone. This time, he's on an island (again in WWII), watching for Japanese planes and ships, when Leslie Caron (you know, Gigi!) and a bunch of schoolgirls end up marooned there with him. And then the fun really begins. He hates having them underfoot -- especially that Leslie Caron. I wonder if they'll end up together.
The next entry in the Cary Grant Project is "Operation Petticoat", more of a straight-up comedy, not a romantic comedy at all. Cary Grant's in charge of a submarine badly in need of repair at the start of WWII and Tony Curtis is a womanizing thief who's only in the Navy to get the uniform -- to help him move up in life by making himself attractive to the wealthier classes. Before people of my generation knew them as television stars, "Operation Petticoat" also boasts (in small doses) such future icons as Dick Sargent, Gavin MacLeod, and Marion Ross (if you concentrate and don't blink very often). And as you'd expect in 1959, this movie features the older, slightly befuddled and perturbed Cary Grant.
"Sylvia Scarlett" was the first film (of 4) that Cary Grant did with Katharine Hepburn. She manages to disguise herself as a boy by, basically, cutting her hair and wearing boy clothes. And everyone is totally amazed (an hour into the movie) when she reveals that she's not a boy. Cary Grant's role was much smaller than hers, which I expect will be pretty much true of all his early-to-mid '30s work.
And the Cary Grant Project reaches 10 films with the second that he did with Ingrid Bergman, "Indiscreet". I had never seen this one. Ingrid Bergman is a famous actress and Cary Grant is a wealthy diplomat who pretends to be married when they meet and start an affair. And then the fun really begins.
Now that there are 10 in the list, I'm going to try to order them from best to worst. And by best, of course, I mean the ones I like best, my favorites. As in so many things I try to put into order, being at the bottom doesn't necessarily mean I don't like it, but something has to go at the bottom. Everything can't be number one. This isn't kindergarten. Or Europe.