BEFORE: Yeah, so a lot of these Cary Grant films seem to be about love and relationships, which makes me wonder if I should have saved them for next February. However, I still have hope that I can finish this project in 2015, so with some effort maybe I won't be doing this next February. Too late now, I've committed to (M)Archie Madness, today is day 3 of Archie Leach/Cary Grant's chain.
Grant plays a British Earl tonight, which made me wonder - he's an American actor, star of so many Hollywood films, why did he have something akin to a British accent? Ah, but his bio says he was born in Bristol, England, and did his first acting as part of a troupe that traveled around the U.K. and then performed in the music halls in London, and moved to perform on Broadway in 1920. That explains a lot.
THE PLOT: Victor and Hillary are down on their luck to the point that they allow tourists to take guided tours of their castle. But Charles Delacro, a millionaire oil tycoon, visits, and takes a liking to more than the house.
AFTER: This seems like a traditional love triangle, that threatens to blossom into a love rectangle, so there's definitely a connection to more modern romances, like "Something's Gotta Give", to name one. But that in itself is quite shocking for a film made in 1960 - as I saw in "Love in the Afternoon", movies in the late 1950's and early 1960's still had a problem with showing two unmarried people in bed together - that film with Audrey Hepburn would only show her dancing with Gary Cooper in a hotel room, then occasionally there was a shot of clothes on the floor, and we had to fill in the blanks.
Tonight it's an even more uncomfortable situation - a man's wife "falls in love" with another man. Sure, she speeds off to London, they spend every minute together, she's never at her friend's guest room where she's supposedly staying so she simply MUST be sleeping in the other man's hotel room, but the movie falls short of making this clear. Sure, she's fallen in love, let's go with that, because infidelity is just so icky, right?
However, what's depicted here is a married couple who has been together for so long (and the husband has apparently had several flings over the years, but we're given the excuse that it's "different for men"...) that when he walks into the room, after his wife has kissed another man, we're later told that he just KNEW what had gone on. Picked it up from her demeanor, body language, whatever. He knew, and he let her go to London anyway.
Then, when the situation is engineered so her American boyfriend is invited to their estate, once again it's a game where everyone knows what's going on, but no one is willing to talk about it. Silly British people, you've just got to get this stuff out in the open and talk about it! Instead, we know that he knows his wife has been unfaithful. And we know that the boyfriend knows that the husband knows that the wife has been unfaithful. And I bet that the husband knows that the boyfriend knows that the husband knows... and so on.
(Similarly, the wife knows that the husband knows, then the husband knows that the wife knows that the husband knows...)
Here's what's interesting (to me, anyway): when you know your spouse is interested in someone else, the first impulse is to circle the wagons, scream, cause a fuss, and protect your territory. One could say that this is entirely the wrong approach, that the more of a scene you cause, the more you will push your spouse into the arms of the other lover. Instead, Cary Grant's character takes another path, where he plays along, pretends he doesn't know (even though we know he knows), and acts quite civilly. He figures that either his wife will have her fun and come back to him, or she won't - and either way, it's not worth causing a ruckus. That's one cool customer - either that, or he's just quite sophisticated, or perhaps too world-weary to fight for her.
Or perhaps he's craftier than anyone gives him credit for being - perhaps he's got a trick or three up his sleeve, and instead of openly fighting to get his wife back, he's clever enough to make her realize what she'd be giving up if she goes of with the other man.
NITPICK POINT: The opening titles show babies on a large lawn, with names underneath, so the babies are meant to represent the various members of the cast and crew. But why? I can't see any connection between babies and the plot, or any specific reason that the cast should have been represented as babies. OK, it's a little cute to see a baby holding loose pieces of film to represent the editor, or a baby with a sour face to represent director Stanley Donen, but I feel it served no practical purpose, and seemed disconnected from the rest of the film. Why not just combine the credits with the following sequence, showing stately British manors?
Also starring Deborah Kerr (last seen in "An Affair to Remember"), Robert Mitchum (last seen in "Midway"), Jean Simmons (last seen in "Elmer Gantry").
RATING: 5 out of 10 Dundee cakes
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