IN NAME ONLY

Grant, Lombard and Francis

IN NAME ONLY (1939). Director: John Cromwell. 

Alec Walker (Cary Grant) is trapped in a loveless marriage with his wife Maida (Kay Francis), who freely admits she was in love with another man at the time of their wedding and only married Alec for his money. Alec meets a free-spirited widow, Julie Eden (Carole Lombard) with a small girl, and he and Julie, instantly smitten, fall in love. But will Maida graciously step aside -- or cause them all manner of trouble? What do you think? The stars are all in top form in this -- it's one of Francis' best performances -- and the picture is warm, humorous, dramatic, and absorbing, the only deficit a climactic bout with pneumonia that's a bit of a bore. Otherwise, this is very entertaining. Supporting players include Helen Vinson as the bitchy, man-hungry Suzanne, supposedly Maida's best friend; Katharine Alexander as Laura, Julie's bitter sister; and Charles Coburn as Grant's father, who doesn't have nearly enough to do. Grant and Lombard are really terrific in this. A lost film from that great year for movies, 1939. 

 

Verdict: Kay, Carole and Cary make this a winner! ***1/2.

CARY GRANT, DARK ANGEL

CARY GRANT, DARK ANGEL Geoffrey Wansell. Arcade; 2016.

This updated version of Wansell's biography of Grant is a coffee table trade paperback loaded with photographs. The book keeps hinting at Grant's "dark side," which numerous co-stars, friends and directors apparently noticed, but it's never really explored in any depth, although there are details of the actor's problematic relationship with his mother. As usual, the book notes that Grant and Randolph Scott lived together even after Grant's first marriage -- Grant's first five marriages all failed, and his sixth ended with his death -- but is coy about everything else. Apparently Grant was a terrible husband until his more mellow final years. The author does a perfectly workmanlike job of exploring Grant's various film roles, his affairs, and Hollywood career, but whether Grant was gay or bisexual and desperately needed the heterosexual facade of a movie star, or whether he was just the stereotypical much-married Hollywood actor, this book doesn't reveal.  Much of the book covers very well-tread territory.

Verdict: Not bad for what it is, but there's nothing really new here. **1/2. 

THAT TOUCH OF MINK

Doris Day and Cary Grant

THAT TOUCH OF MINK (1962). Director: Delbert Mann.

"When a man donates $200,000, he's entitled to use the facilities."

Wealthy entrepreneur Philip Shayne (Cary Grant) is in his limousine when it splashes mud on out-of-work Cathy Timberlake (Doris Day.) Philip sends his associate, Roger (Gig Young of Hunt the Man Down) to apologize for him, but Cathy insists Philip do it himself. When she meets him, however, she is so instantly smitten that she apologizes to him. Thus begins a difficult romance in which Cathy does her best to maintain her virtue even as Philip flies her off to exotic places and wines and dines her par excellance. A series of comical misunderstandings may or may not lead to the altar ...

A date from Hell: Doris Day and John Astin

That Touch of Mink is a funny movie, greatly abetted by the performances of the two leads. One could quibble that both of them, especially Grant, are a bit too old to be dancing around this whole sex-or-no-sex business, but they make the skirmishes amusing in spite of it. John Astin is also notable as a sleazy man in the unemployment office who has a hankering for Cathy and winds up wishing that he didn't.

Although there's nothing necessarily wrong with Audrey Meadows' performance, I was somehow disappointed by it. Meadows certainly knew how to slap down a line on The Honeymooners, but maybe this part should have been essayed by Eve Arden. Laurie Mitchell, the Queen of Outer Space herself, has a bit part as a showgirl, and John Fiedler is amusing as a confused bridegroom who gets the wrong idea about his wife. That Touch of Mink is typical of many sixties comedies in that it milks some humor out of a misunderstanding over a character's sexual orientation -- in this case Roger's shrink (Alan Hewitt, who is also very good) thinks he is gay. It does lead up to a silly but nevertheless hilarious final sequence.

Verdict: Despite its dated qualities (on so many levels), this is a consistently amusing picture with extremely adept leads. ***. 

NIGHT AND DAY

Cary Grant and Alexis Smith

NIGHT AND DAY (1946). Director: Michael Curtiz.

"Love can be a delight, a dilemma, a disease, or a disaster." -- Monty Woolley.

Over his grandfather's objections, Cole Porter (Cary Grant) decides to leave Yale and pursue a career as a songwriter instead of as a lawyer. Things don't go smoothly at first, with WW1 interrupting things, but eventually he becomes a big success. Unfortunately, his marriage to his neglected wife, Linda (Alexis Smith), hits the rocks, and he has a horse riding accident that requires operations. Will the rather self-centered composer and his wife ever be reunited? Actually, if there was any threat to Porter's marriage, it was because he preferred gentlemen, but the film glosses over this except for one moment when Porter's friend, Monty Woolley, (played by Monty Woolley, who had indeed been a friend of Porter's and was also closeted) tells him he probably shouldn't have gotten married in the first place. The rest of the film is a mix of truths and half-truths and outright fabrication, little of which is very compelling.

Therefore we're left with Porter's music, of which there is quite a lot: "Miss Otis Regrets;" "In the Still of the Night;" 'I've Got You Under My Skin;" "I Get a Kick Out of You;" "You're the Top;" and many, many others. Jane Wyman [All That Heaven Allows] makes a positive impression as performer Gracie Harris, and Ginny Simms [Hit the Ice], who has a lovely voice, made a bid for stardom as another performer, Carole Hill. Mary Martin  plays herself to perform her signature tune "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" and there are several lively, TechniColor production numbers, including one on the lawn of Porter's massive estate.

As for the acting, Alexis Smith [The Sleeping Tiger] actually fares better than Grant, who is adequate, but seems oddly listless and unconvincing; Porter himself was still alive when the film was made and died in 1964. Eve Arden shows up as a French chanteuse to warble one number. I didn't even recognize Dorothy Malone as Porter's cousin, Nancy. Years later Kevin Kline played Porter in a film that was franker, but not necessarily better.

Verdict: The music is all that matters. **1/2.

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

Ronald Colman and Jean Arthur

THE TALK OF THE TOWN (1942). Producer/director: George Stevens.

Leopold Dilg (Cary Grant) has been falsely accused of setting fire to a warehouse and killing the watchman, so he breaks out of jail. He hides out in a house that has just been sold to law professor Michael Lightcap (Ronald Colman), who shows up a day earlier than expected while Nora Shelley (Jean Arthur) is fixing things up. Wanting to be able to feed Dilg while he's hiding in the attic, Nora takes a job as Michael's cook and secretary, while Leopold comes downstairs and introduces himself as the gardener. This strange trio will have to contend with the authorities as they tear the town apart looking for Dilg, who is right under their noses. Meanwhile, which man will Nora ultimately wind up with? You may not find yourself caring all that much, because the script for Talk of the Town is, frankly, beneath the talents of its three wonderful leading players, all of whom are at the top of their game (although one could argue that Grant is a little too insouciant considering the desperate situation he's in).The movie begins with a very cinematic opening depicting Dilg's escape, but then there's an abrupt change in tone as what started out as a melodrama turns into a screwball and borderline slapstick comedy; then there's another shift into melodrama. This might have worked in some of Frank Capra's pictures, but this is an uneasy blend of some genuine laughs with a more serious underlying tone, and the two never quite jell. Glenda Farrell is less obnoxious than usual as the girlfriend of Clyde Bracken, played by Tom Tyler [The Phantom] of serial fame. Edgar Buchanan, Leonid Kinskey, Charles Dingle and Rex Ingram [The Thief if Bagdad] have smaller roles. George Stevens also directed Woman of the Year and many other, much better pictures.

Verdict: Tries to be Capraesque, but fails -- although the leads are all great! **.

SUZY

Jean Harlow and Cary Grant's hand

SUZY (1936). Director: George Fitzmaurice.

"I don't dance much and I don't sing so well, but I can be awful cute when I want to be." -- Suzy

Suzy (Jean Harlow), an American entertainer in London on the eve of WW1, eventually finds herself married to two men at the same time: Factory foreman Terry (Franchot Tone), who at one point gets shot by a spy; and wealthy French playboy and war hero, Andre (Cary Grant) who distinguishes himself as a flier -- and a heel. How this bizarre situation came about and how it is resolved is the stuff of Suzy, a wartime soap opera that mixes dogfights, Mata Hari-types, inadvertent bigamy, adultery, German spies, and music halls -- and it's still a meandering bore. Jean Harlow is delightful in the first half of the film but director Fitzmaurice is unable to get her to properly handle some of the tougher scenes in the second half, although she certainly had the ability to do so. Tone and Grant are both fine -- although Tone is as unconvincing as an Irishman as Grant is as a Frenchman! --  but Lewis Stone walks off with the movie as Grant's stern but loving father, who eventually comes to care very much for the showgirl he at first disapproves of. [The picture eliminates Stone from the finale and shouldn't have.] Inez Courtney [The Reckless Way], Una O'Connor [Stingaree], and Benita Hume are also notable as, respectively, Suzy's pal, landlady, and love rival. Fitzmaurice also directed Mata Hari with Greta Garbo. The most unforgivable thing about Suzy is that it tries to rip off the "I was reading a book" scene from Dinner at Eight!

Verdict: Melodramatic claptrap that seems cobbled together from scenes from better movies. **.

THE HOLLYWOOD BOOK OF BREAKUPS

THE HOLLYWOOD BOOK OF BREAKUPS. James Robert Parish. John Wiley and Sons; 2006.

This absorbing tome looks into the lives, loves and break-ups of both old and new, very familiar names in movies and on television: Woody vs. Mia; Aniston vs. Pitt; DeMaggio vs. Monroe; Cruise vs. Kidman; Hughes vs Peters; Eastwood vs Locke; and so on, going all the way back to the days of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Sr., while stopping to revisit the likes of Madonna vs. Sean Penn and Sonny vs. Cher along the way. There are also chapters on Petter [sic] Lindstrom's bitter split with Ingrid Bergman over lover and film director, Roberto Rosellini; Ted Danson's bizarrely appearing in blackface during his involvement with Whoopi Goldberg; the bad marriage of Cary Grant and Barbara Hutton; and dozens more. Throughout its pages, the book documents one basic Hollywood truism: that relationships in La La Land are often based more on career advancement than "love." It is amusing how people who break up relationships via affairs justify their infidelity. Anne Heche, who discarded Ellen DeGeneres as she had Steve Martin before her, seemed to blame DeGeneres for her affair because Ellen didn't trust her, but considering that Heche had an affair with a cameraman while everyone was filming a documentary about Ellen, it seems DeGeneres' fears were thoroughly justified!

Verdict: Excellent look at the bizarre nature of Hollywood relationships and the disasters they often incur. ***1/2.

SUSPICION

Lina (Joan Fontaine) suspects her husband wants to kill her

SUSPICION (1941). Director: Alfred Hitchcock.

Lonely heiress Lina (Joan Fontaine) meets the charming mountebank Johnnie (Cary Grant) and finally falls in love. The two get married and move into a huge house that Johnnie can clearly not afford. Lina discovers that her husband has an aversion to work of any kind, and an addiction to gambling, even selling antique chairs given to her by her father as a wedding present, for money. A friend named Beaky (Nigel Bruce) shows up and lets slip further information that unsettles the discomfited wife. After Lina fears that her husband might be involved in a death that occurred in Paris, she then suspects that he is planning to do away with her. But is she right -- or this time does two and two add up to five? Suspicion is a smooth, beautifully photographed [Harry Stradling] and handsomely produced thriller that features an outstanding performance from Fontaine and also boasts Grant at his best, never quite giving away whether he's a total rotter or not. Other notable players include Dame May Whitty and Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Lina's parents, and Leo. G. Carroll as Johnnie's cousin, from whom he embezzles. It's been said that the ending is tacked on and a bit of a cop-out, but it still works. Unusual scoring by Franz Waxman.

Verdict: Another smooth suspenser from the Master. ***1/2.

BLONDE VENUS

BLONDE VENUS (1932). Director: Joseph von Sternberg.

While on a camping trip in Germany Ned Faraday (Herbert Marshall) comes across Helen (Marlene Dietrich) swimming with other pretty chorus girls and it's love at first sight. In one of the swiftest transitions I've ever seen in any movie, practically the next second  the two are married, living in the U.S., and have a cute little boy named Johnny (Dickie Moore). [I mean there isn't even a two-second shot of their wedding let alone any scenes of courtship.] It develops early on that Ned has a serious illness and needs a lot of money to travel to get treatment, so Helen goes back to work [billed as the "Blonde Venus" in a campy "African" night club number in which she first appears in a gorilla suit] and gets the money from playboy Nick Townsend (Cary Grant). What follows is a series of misunderstandings and recriminations, with Helen on the run with Johnny and Ned in pursuit and so on. This is neither one of Dietrich's best performances nor one of her better movies, and Grant, Marshall and even little Dickie Moore come off better than Dietrich. Blonde Venus is the kind of dopey movie in which even while on the run and hungry for food Dietrich can somehow manage to afford a maid [the always-wonderful Hattie McDaniel]! The "Hot Voodoo" number, while utterly impossible to take seriously, is a hoot, and Dietrich's flat singing as delightfully awful as ever. Sidney Toler plays a police detective hunting Helen, and Sterling Holloway has a small role as a friend of Ned's in the early scenes in Germany.

Verdict: At least Dietrich looks beautiful no matter what her tribulations. **.

HOT SATURDAY

Randolph Scott and Nancy Carroll

HOT SATURDAY (1932). Director: William A. Seiter.

Ruth Brock (Nancy Carroll) works in a bank and has several suitors, but her troubles begin when she goes to a party at the estate of wealthy Romer Sheffield (Cary Grant) and rumors spread about her allegedly spending the night with him. But can she find true love with old family friend, Bill (Randolph Scott of Go West, Young Man), or will those pesky rumors get to him, too? The ending is a little unexpected but not entirely satisfying, as she chooses a man who has already proven to be a heel and doesn't give another guy much of a chance (and has pretty much used him in the first place). With her flat, broad face and cartoon lips, Carroll is an unlikely sex symbol, but her performance is quite good. Cary Grant is excellent, and Scott is okay if not quite in the same league. Grady Sutton [The Bank Dick] and Jane Darwell [The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe] are fine in supporting roles. The pre-code Hot Saturday tries hard to be risque and daring, but it comes off more as confused, and is too short to do justice to its story line and characters.

Verdict: A movie about the private lives of Grant and Scott would probably have been more entertaining. **1/2.

NOTORIOUS

Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman

NOTORIOUS (1946). Director: Alfred Hitchcock.

Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) is the daughter of a German-born traitor who is imprisoned after a trial. The government, in the person of Devlin (Cary Grant), persuades Alicia to spy for them on an old admirer, Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), who is one member of a Nazi enclave in Rio, where he lives in a big house with his termagant mother (Leopoldine Konstantin). Although Devlin is falling in love with Alicia and vice versa, he can't forget her past as a good-time party girl and, not wanting to get hurt, keeps throwing it at her. [One has to suspend disbelief over the whole business of a government agent having a relationship with a woman  for which he is an official liaison!] Each victims of their own pride, neither Alicia nor Devlin protest when it is suggested that she actually marry Sebastian so she can enter the household itself and accrue more information as to their plans. But if Sebastian or his mother should find out the truth ...? Bergman, Grant, and Rains -- not to mention Konstantin and the supporting cast -- all give excellent performances in this smooth Hitchcock thriller with a tense, rewarding climax. Hitchcock subtly maintains a sinister aura greatly aided by Rains and Konstantin and their unpleasant associates. Fay Baker, playing a partying friend of Alicia's, was Bette Davis' greedy sister in The Star and was a Mother-from-Hell in Sorority Girl.

Verdict: Definitely a strange romance with a fascinating heroine. ***1/2.

TO CATCH A THIEF

Kelly and Grant in To Catch a Thief

TO CATCH A THIEF (1955). Director: Alfred Hitchcock.

John Robie (Cary Grant), who used to be a thief known as the Cat before becoming a hero in the resistance, is suspected of a new series of burglaries on the Riviera, especially by his former comrades. Annoyed by the whole situation, he decides to track down the real culprit by getting close to potential victims, such as wealthy American Jessie Stevens (Jessie Royce Landis) and her beautiful daughter Frances (Grace Kelly), with whom he gets very close. While this may lack the intensity of other Hitchcock, movies, it is also smooth, well-made, and full of fine acting and wonderful dialogue [courtesy of John Michael Hayes]. Grant and Kelly are as wonderful as ever, as is Landis, and John Williams -- one of Hitch's favorites -- is as usual on the money as insurance man Hughson. Playing the daughter of one of Robie's old associates, Brigitte Auber may have been younger than Kelly but the latter pretty much blows the former out of the water. All this and a nifty car chase sequence, too.

Verdict: Hitchcock treading water maybe, but who treads water with more -- pun intended -- grace? ***

SHE DONE HIM WRONG

SHE DONE HIM WRONG (1933). Director: Lowell Sherman.

"When women go wrong, men go right after them!"

In New York's Bowery during the Gay Nineties, saloon singer Lou (Mae West) has taken up with the owner, Gus (Noah Beery Sr.), after her previous boyfriend, Chick (Owen Moore), wound up in jail. Lou doesn't really want either of these comparative plug-uglies, but instead hankers for Russian Rita's (Rafaela Ottiano) man Serge (Gilbert Roland), and especially do-gooder Captain Cummings (Cary Grant), who has a secret. But Chick isn't about to let his gal wind up with another man, so he breaks jail ... Louise Beavers is fun as the maid, Pearl, and Rochelle Hudson appears as a poor little waif named Sally. This is an amiable movie -- not so much a parody of a melodrama as a melodrama with laughs -- that is full of West's patented double entendres and sex-emphatic "acting." Grant comes off very well in his scenes with West. As usual, West's character is a shady lady who plays the game as the men do, and generally comes out on top.

Verdict: Brief and minor but amiable and with some great one-liners. **1/2.

ONCE UPON A TIME

ONCE UPON A TIME (1944). Director: Alexander Hall.

"Despite all of its grief and turmoil, there are still beautiful things in the world."

Okay. Producer Jerry Flynn (Cary Grant), who is in danger of losing the theater he owns because of one flop after another, runs into a boy, Binky (Ted Donaldson), who has a pet caterpillar, Curly, who can dance -- but only to the strains of "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby." From that premise, you might expect that the film would be a rollicking farce, but instead it's a comedy-drama-fantasy with Grant giving his usual adept performance but he's perhaps more restrained, given the subject matter, than he should have been. Janet Blair is Binky's concerned sister, and James Gleason is Jerry's pal and colleague. Once Upon a Time wants to be a whimsical, meaningful [see quote above] fantasy, but never quite approaches that level, although it does look into adult-child relationships, keeping promises, personal accountability, with some degree of success. The best scene -- which finally reaches the level of loopiness that the premise deserves -- is when a trio of scientists inspect Curly in a laboratory, and are stunned by their findings. ["Maybe a 1000 years ago he was Salome."] The problem with Curly is that it's hard to sympathize with the creature because we never actually see him (until the end, after he's undergone an expected metamorphosis). In any case, this damned picture has an undeniably moving conclusion. Little Donaldson not only gives a terrific performance as Binky, but is right up there with Grant throughout the picture. He went on to appear in a number of "Rusty" dog films, and was also in Phone Call from a Stranger.

Verdict: At least it's different. ***.

NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART

NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART (1944). Director: Clifford Odets.

"Love's not for the poor, son. No time for it."

This is one of only two films directed by playwright/screenwriter Clifford Odets, and frankly you expect more from a man with his talent. The first problem is that Odets was adapting someone else's novel, and the second is that Odets the director wasn't a little tougher on Odets the screenwriter. To be blunt, despite a good idea and some nice moments, None But the Lonely Heart is a talky bore.

Ernie Mott (Cary Grant) wants to live free and independent, but when he learns that his Ma (Ethel Barrymore) is dying of cancer, he decides to stick around and help her run her shop. Although there's a nice, uncomplicated girl, Aggie (Jane Wyatt), who loves him unconditionally ("I wouldn't trade it for a box at the opera, the thing I feel for you," she tells him), Ernie gets involved with the much more complicated Ada (June Duprez). Ada is still very much connected to her brutal mobster ex-husband Jim (George Coulouris).

The problem with the plot is that the whole business of a basically nice guy getting involved

with a slick operator (in this case, Jim) to make money was pretty much old hat by 1944. In an earlier decade Mott would have been played by James Cagney and in a later decade Jim would have been enacted by Steve Cochran. In all the directions that the film could have gone, it chooses the most trite one.

The film is never convincing and is sentimental in the wrong way. Grant gives a very good performance, but he isn't exactly believable as a cockney or as someone from the lower classes; he's too old and too sophisticated by far. Barrymore is wonderful as Ma Mott, but even she is a touch too lady-like. Wyatt gives another lovely -- if brief -- performance as Aggie, and June Duprez does okay as Ada. Coulouris is on the money as Jim. An uncredited Queenie Vassar offers a vivid portrait of the larcenous Mrs. Snowden, and Konstantin Shayne and Barry Fitzgerald enact important supporting roles with aplomb.

Verdict: Disjointed disappointment, but with a great theme borrowed from Tchaikovsky. **.

CARY GRANT

CARY GRANT. Marc Eliot. Harmony Books. 2004.

This is a readable if not especially revelatory look at the life of Cary Grant from his troubled early years in England, to his stage career in New York, to his highly successful film career, as well as his involvement with actor Randolph Scott and his four marriages to women. It seems pretty clear to the reader (if not necessarily to Eliot) that Grant was essentially a gay man who, while initially free-spirited and free-thinking and without any special qualms about his sexuality, spent his later years (once stardom came upon him during a much less tolerant period) running from his sexual identity, always eager to preserve his image and the career that gave him so many options, not the least of which was financial. Eliot makes some attempt to explore the man's complexity but despite some details of his long relationship with Scott is less successful keeping an honest tab on his true sexuality. Eliot is not a film historian – most of his previous books were on rock and folk music – so he recycles such ancient canards as John Gilbert not having a voice fit for sound pictures and he classifies Howard Hughes strictly as a heterosexual. At one point he writes that Shirley Temple “had set off a generation of middle-aged men into cold sweats while still a toddler”(!) His descriptions of Grant's looks, appeal and acting ability occasionally border on the poetic but sometimes veer into the pretentious. While the ultimate book on Cary Grant has yet to be written, this is not at all bad for readers who are unfamiliar with previous biographies of the actor.

Verdict: Okay as intro to Grant. **1/2.

A LIFE BETTER LIVED April 1st

A LIFE BETTER LIVED (1940). Director: Morgan Birtcastle.

Years before Brokeback Mountain there was this never-released film version of Winston Braddock's 1927 novel about two married men who recognize that their feelings for one another are romantic and sexual. In the film version, which stars Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant as the husbands and life-long best friends, the subject matter was muted so that the two men simply realize that they love each other, platonically, more than they do their wives, and in fact their relationship is the primary relationship in each man's life. The script also was more of a comedy-drama than a drama. However, when studio heads saw the film, it was clear that the real theme of the picture was still fairly obvious to the more sophisticated members of the audience so the film was shelved and hidden away in the vaults for decades.

The comedy aspects of A Life Better Lived are pretty lame - the boys making dinner and making a mess of it and that sort of thing -- but the more dramatic sections have some bite to them. Grant's arguments with Helen Jordan as his wife have the ring of truth and go right up to the "Jim McGreevey"edge. When Bogart and Grant talk about how they're "like brothers" they almost seem to protest too much. While it's clear why the film made so many people nervous, in its "sanitized" form it seems to make the hardly revelatory or controversial point that the friendships (straight) men have with other men often matter more to them than their relationships with their wives. The studio was being overly skittish in shelving a film that was much less racy than some, and probably would have gone over the heads of most of the audience. A Life Better Lived ends with Bogart and Grant leaving their wives and going off to live together in the mountains, but it's sort of played for laughs!

Verdict: Surprisingly effective at times but a bowdlerization of the book. **1/2

BRINGING UP BABY

BRINGING UP BABY (1938). Director: Howard Hawks.

After sixty-seven years this hilarious film arguably remains the best and funniest “screwball” comedy ever made. Katharine Hepburn is an heiress who is instantly attracted to a somewhat stuffy but handsome and likable scientist (Cary Grant) whose life she turns upside down (on the eve of his marriage to a cold fish, no less) as she not only tries to win him over but deal with a tamed leopard named Baby who was dropped off at her door. Grant is putting together the bones of a dinosaur and is supposed to take particular care of a certain specimen which winds up being buried in an enormous backyard by Hepburn's little dog. If that's not enough, a dangerous leopard escapes from a zoo and is mistaken for Hepburn's charming pet. Add Hepburn's peppery relative (May Robson), an alleged big game hunter (Charlie Ruggles) and other eccentrics to the mix and you've got a classic that sparkles and delights from start to finish. While the material may seem more geared to Lucille Ball, Hepburn gives a wonderful, interestingly nuanced performance, and Grant puts his fine comic gifts on display throughout. Howard Hawks keeps things at a brisk pace. While I've never belonged to the school of major Hawks' admirers, it has to be said that this is one of his best pictures, far more memorable than Rio Bravo and others of its ilk.

Verdict: Great! ***1/2