The Film Junkie

This somewhat forced love story has its good elements, but overall it seems strange and nothing seems to fit together. 

Cary Grant stars as a father of three who has been separated from his wife for several years when she passes away leaving him alone with the children he barely knows.  The child actors are delightful, intelligent and full of life.  Grant is great as a distant father used to being alone who is unprepared for the strange curiousity of youth as well as children who are trying to cope with mortality.

The movie takes a turn for the weird when Grant’s son encounters the runaway daughter of a famous Italian conductor (Sophia Loren) and begs his father to make her their maid.  Loren looks over-tanned and sort of dirty throughout the film.  Her golden dress is a sight to behold, but before that she looks over-corseted and odd.  As far as her acting, Loren is charming, but her accent can be slightly frustrating. 

Thus the film goes from being about fatherhood to being about surrogate motherhood to being a romantic comedy to being about modern marriage.  By the end of the film, the children are aggravating and Loren is tiresome, Grant is the only constantly good element in the film.

Grade: B-

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

What a bizarre and ridiculously stupid movie!  I have no idea who suckered Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward into this mess, but it is painful to watch.

The plot has something to do with infidelity, the military, a girl discovering boys for the first time and a monkey…none of these things really get resolved, they only tunnel deeper and deeper into the general annoyance that is this film.

Newman and Woodward play a married couple (they themselves would marry that same year and have one of the most famous and long-lasting Hollywood marriages ever) whose marriage is suffering under the weight of all their responsibilities, though mainly Woodward’s passion for community organization and committees.  Newman tries to take his wife away for a vacation, but her commitment to her work keeps her from going.

Due to various circumstances, Newman ends up in Washington with a half-naked Joan Collins (yes THAT Joan Collins, though much younger and more vibrant) in his hotel room when his wife walks in.

The struggling marriage then takes a back seat to a dull and useless plot involving a top secret military labratory and silly young lovers.

This movie is incoherent and lame and it makes waste of all the talent of its actors and its director, the awesome Leo McCarey (1937’s ‘The Awful Truth’).  And what a stupid title.  I can’t imagine that the book was much better, but we can hope can’t we?

Don’t bother.

Grade: C-