The Film Junkie

The chemistry between Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn is a treat to behold.  Few people have the timing, wit and physical abilities of these two and when they are in a scene together you can’t take your eyes off of them.  The only other male-female team I can think of that work this well together are Woody Allen and Diane Keaton (and if you don’t believe me see ‘Love and Death’ and ‘Annie Hall’).

Wealthy upper crust Julia Seton (Doris Nolan) falls in love with Johnny (Grant) a middle class man she met on holiday and returns with him to New York to introduce him to her family, including her free spirited sister, Linda (Hepburn).  Johnny and Julia soon discover that they are very different sorts of people and Johnny takes comfort in the fun-loving activities of Linda.

One of the first scenes between Grant and Hepburn has her greeting him while snacking on an apple then reaching out and offering him a bite of the same apple with a comfortable ease that goes far beyond the single day their characters have known one another.

Though she might be better known for teaming with Spencer Tracy and he might be famous as the dashing leading man, in the few films they did together there is simply nothing that compares with the magnetism of Grant and Hepburn.

Grade: A

Though this film is certainly visually stunning, there is little substance underneath the appearance. 

Vincente Minnelli is a brilliant director, however his style and grace are not enough to save an annoying story with aggravating characters and a predictable plot.

Sandra Dee stars in one of her first roles as Jane, the daughter of Lord Broadbent (Rex Harrison, the one high point of the film) and stepdaughter of his new wife, Sheila (Kay Kendall, charming at the beginning of the film but dreadfully redundant in the second half) who comes to live with them in London after growing up in America.  Jane gets suckered into ‘coming out’ as a debutante due to Sheila’s rivalry with the snobby Mabel (Angela Landsbury, one note against her better instincts).

Of course Jane refuses to fall for any of the ‘proper’ sort of boys and instead becomes involved with a drummer.  What wants to pass for a confusing state of circumstance comes off enitirely predictable from the first time you hear that both the upper class lad and the drummer are named David.  Yet we are forced to wait an hour and a half for the characters to figure this out.

Throughout the film the song ‘The Boy Next Door’ from Minnelli’s masterpiece ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’ (1944) as though to remind us that he has made some great films, yet all it accomplished for me was to make me wish I was watching Judy Garland singing to Tom Drake instead of this dull pastry of a film.

Grade: C