Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

It's not quite two months since I last wrote about 'old' Cary Grant, and here we go again. Especially since he is paired here with one of my all-time favourite actresses Katharine Hepburn. They made four films together, three of which are classic screwball comedies: "Holiday" (1938), "Bringing up Baby" (1938), and "Phildadelphia Story" (1940). However their first joint venture is not only little-known, but often either dismissed as a silly trifle or barely remembered as germane to their filmographies. Made during the period when Hepburn was regarded as 'box-office poison' and Grant had not quite morphed into the epitome of the sophisticated leading man, this film is actually not only essential viewing for their respective fans, but a great deal of fun as well.

The film opens in France where small-time embezzler Edmund Gwenn (eventually to become everyone's favourite Santa Claus) is on the run from the police with daughter Hepburn in tow. To prevent the cops searching for a man travelling with a young girl on the cross-channel ferry, Sylvia chops off her hair and becomes young Sylvester, spending the first half of the movie in cross-dressing drag. On the ship they meet Cockney con-man Grant, who shops the lace-smuggling Gwenn to the Customs authorities to distract from his own underhand activities. Chastened and broke, Gwenn and his young 'son' Sylvester are at their lowest ebb, before Grant saves the day with some cash and plans for future joint scams. These include trying to pass off the fluent French-speaking Sylvester as a young and abandoned waif, milking the crowd for their spare change, to looking up an old girlfriend Maudie, a maid in the home of a cruising rich couple.

There the vulgar young woman (Dennie Moore, surprisingly uncredited in a pivotal role) is encouraged to dress up in her mistress's best togs and jewels which Grant plans to purloin, but she also catches the eye of amorous Gwenn (who also uses the occasion to dress up in her master's velvet court togs and prance about). Hepburn still playing a gormless teenager, gets roaringly drunk but manages to shame Grant into returning the swag. From here, the storyline gets even more bizarre as the four decide to go off to become a seaside entertaintment group, the Pink Pierrots (!), travelling the countryside in a caravan and performing their very old-fashioned act in small holiday resorts. In their Harlequin and Columbine costumes, the quartet seem to be enjoying themselves hugely, and one must remember that Grant first went to the States as part of a knockabout comedy vaudeville turn. Here, he plays the piano and sings in a way a million miles away from his usual screen persona -- and very charming he and his colleagues are too as they set out to entertain us all.

At one seaside gathering artist Brian Aherne, watching with his rich young friends, heckles the act and is shamed into apologising by the feckless Sylvester. Aherne is enchanted by the pretty young lad and wants him to pose for him, while Hepburn discovers the first stirrings of love, despite the artist's obvious affair with Russian emigre Natalie Paley (real Russian royalty and also uncredited). So she steals a dress and bonnet from a seaside changing-room (actually a cave!) and reveals herself to Aherne as the young woman she really is. Grant and Moore are also taken aback by her transformation, especially as the latter had jokingly attempted to make out with the would-be youth.  And so the story goes on to its ultimate and not so obvious conclusion, which sees Hepburn paired off with the elusive Aherne and Grant doing his best to put the flighty Paley in her place.  Having already told us of his attitude to women in general -- basically love them and leave them -- it is rather refreshing that he and Hepburn are not paired off after Gwenn's and Moore's disappearance from the action.

Directed by George Cukor, it is not surprising to learn that this film was another of Hepburn's 'flops' and the leaps in logic of its storyline did not find many takers amongst the moviegoers of the day. However as a period piece and as a stepping stone in the development of its two leads, the movie is an undemanding and unexpected pleasure. We are more used to men dressing as women a la "Some Like it Hot" than women passing themselves off as men a la "Victor/Victoria" but drag turns from both sexes have a long and honourable history in film. Katharine Hepburn here is enchanting as both a young girl and a young man and that's just fine with me. As for Cary Grant, I've yet to see a film where he is anything less than priceless, and "Sylvia Scarlett" deserves its shining place in developing his longterm career. 

How Old Cary Grant?

Have you heard the old chestnut about the publicist who cabled Grant's agent asking 'How old Cary Grant?' The reply read 'Old Cary Grant fine, how you?' That just about sums up the actor in a nutshell, an unchanging screen presence, always something of the cheeky chappy about him, whilst still retaining a suave sophistication. He remains the archetypal film star, forever playing variations on a single theme, always a very fine Cary Grant. The in-joke of the man born Bernie Schwartz putting on his best Cary Grant accent in "Some Like it Hot" is to baffle us with the idea that he too could be this timeless leading man.

This all sprung to mind after watching a double-disc of two of his lesser-known films. I purchased it to replace my old beta copy of "In Name Only" (1939) and it came with a print of "Once Upon a Honeymoon" (1942), a film which I had seen previously, but which had struck me as too flawed to warrant owning a copy. Directed by dab hand Leo McCarey, it is a Hollywood stab at anti-Nazi propaganda, but is far too uneven in tone to do the job. Grant plays a news reporter hoping to become a radio broadcaster in Europe on the brink of the Second World War. His leading lady is Ginger Rogers, an actress who has forever troubled me in her non-musical roles. She plays a jumped up ex-stripper from Brooklyn, pretending to be a high-born pukka lady and engaged to marry Walter Slezak's sleazy Austrian baron, one of Hitler's fixers, although Rogers manages to turn a blind eye to his evildoing, even after they marry. It takes persistent attention from Grant to open her eyes and to help her escape from this loveless union into his relatively impoverished arms. Falsifying evidence that she has died in an air-raid, the pair even end up in a concentration camp at one stage (she has given her own papers to her Jewish maid, but kept the latter's original passport in her handbag), where a bunch of religious stereotypes are chanting "Kol Nidre" in the background. Talk about bad taste! As the pair criss-cross Europe en route to passage back to the States, their paths cross a 'French' photographer, Albert Dekker, who is actually an American double-agent, and back once more to the cowardly Slezak. How he is dealt with remains the film's denouement and is like 100% unbelievable.  Even throughout these various shennanigans Grant remains eternatlly Cary Grant and eternally watchable.

"In Name Only" is a very definite change of pace both for Grant and his more likeable co-star Carol Lombard. He is in a loveless (again) marriage with uber-bitch Kay Francis, frostily removed from her earlier and more charming roles. She has married him for his money, despite having been in love with another, but has convinced his doting parents that she is beyond perfection. Meanwhile Grant chances upon Lombard, a widow with a young daughter (a darling Peggy Ann Garner) and is smitten. The sister with whom she lives has been badly hurt by her ex and glowers disapprovingly as the romance simmers. Meanwhile Francis gets wind of her new rival and does her best to humiliate Lombard -- she has no intention of giving up her hard-won meal ticket and the prospect of more to come when his dad Charles Coburn eventually kicks the bucket. When finally confronted by Grant, she promises a divorce and swans off to Paris with his parents for several months, having said that she would break the news to them gently. Grant and Lombard now believe that the future can be theirs until they discover that Francis has dug her fangs in even deeper. This leads Grant to booze it up and to catch a deadly bout of pneumonia -- but the film manages a 'happy' ending despite the florid dramatics from all concerned. This role is in complete contrast to Lombard's usual comedic persona, but she is believable and a glowing presence here despite this change. Grant of course remains good old Cary even while he is in a coma.

Grant was only Oscar-nominated once for another of his 'serious' roles in "None But the Lonely Heart" (1944), but never received any kudos from his peers. Never mind; he continues to receive lasting kudos from his many fans -- of which I am proud to admit I am one.

Born to be Bad (1934)

In the entry below, I refer to the actress Loretta Young as 'dewy-eyed' and in fact she made a long career of playing goody-two-shoes leading ladies and angelic heroines.  It is therefore a rather shocking change of pace to find her as the no-good, more than somewhat whorish lead in this early film.  Made as the pre-code era drew to an end, but not yet quite as restricted as movies would become, the film did face some cuts before it was released -- namely in respect of the full details of Young's character and her somewhat revealing gowns. It remains an interesting product of its time, if not a particularly important film for any of its cast.  Parenthetically it is interesting to consider Young's saintly transformation in the light of her later hushed-up affair with Clark Gable which produced an illegitimate daughter whom Young raised as her 'niece'.


Here she plays an unwed mother who became pregnant at fifteen and who was taken in by kindly bookshop owner Henry Travers (everyone's favourite angel Clarence) before moving out on her own with her now eight or nine year old son and finding that there was a better living to be made as a high class escort, waiting for the opportunity to snare a sugar-daddy. The son, a singularly unwinning brat played by one Jackie Kelk is an early version of one of the Dead End Kids and plays hookey from school, smokes, and drinks -- all with his mother's knowledge.  She seems to love her son, but has absolutely no idea how to raise him.  When he is recklessly roller skating in the street, he is hit by a  truck owned by dairy magnate Cary Grant.  Mother and her shyster lawyer ( a singularly unappealing and very Semitic turn by an actor called Harry Green) see this as an opportunity to play the son's supposed injuries for all they are worth and to sue for huge damages.  In court, however, Grant's lawyers show recent film evidence of the so-called 'crippled' boy skating and leaping about.  Mom loses custody and son Mickey is taken into care.


Neither Young nor her son are happy with this turn of events and she persuades Grant to intervene.  He is happily married to actress Marion Burns (nor me! - not that she had much of a subsequent career) who is unable to have children and Mickey is sent to live with them as a surrogate son.  Despite his new lavish surroundings, the unappealing child keeps trying to run away, packing whatever loot from the household he can swag until he finally begins to be won over by Grant and wife's loving care.  So lawyer Green suggests to Young that if she can seduce Grant and get evidence on a secret recording device, her future will be secured.  She insinuates herself into the household for a few days and uses her wiles to come on strong to her host.  Grant, who is still not quite the dashing Cary Grant we all love from subsequent years, succumbs to her trampy behaviour and is ready to confess his new 'love' to his devoted wife. For once we really hope that Young will receive her comeuppance from a noble Grant, but no such luck.  Mind you all of this action is squeezed into a scant 59-minute running time and we never get to see much of Grant's change from benefactor to besotted lover.


However something happens that finally causes Young to see the light -- or at least a small glimmer -- and she finally realises that it is best to leave her son with this potentially caring couple, telling Grant that he was just another fling and that she is ready for more with other men.  Very like "Stella Dallas" some years on.  Noble mother-love or some such! Although characters at various stages of the film comment on how beautiful Young is, she didn't look all that great to me, and her acting as a tough, streetwise floozy frankly did seem a little forced.  The film was directed by erstwhile silent screen actor Lowell Sherman, who died shortly after it was made, again for 20th Century under Zanuck's watchful eye.  As an example of the cusp of the 30s' film-censorship production, it is historically interesting, but both Young and Grant would go on to far more memorable roles.

An assortment of goodies (of sorts)

Although I'm now down to updating this blog every two to three days (it was more or less daily when I first started and I was keen as mustard), I still maintain my annual average of viewing two or three films a day and occasionally I feel the need to comment briefly on some of the flicks which have recently rolled across my appreciative eyeballs. Like these:

Vatel (2000): Although this French-produced film opened Cannes in the year it was made and although it offers a mighty performance by Gerard Depardieu, it was booed on its premiere showing and was a financial disaster -- largely because it was shot in English, the French script adapted by Tom Stoddard. This is something of a shame since it is a sumptuous production and it is gorgeous to look at with a magnificent Morricone score. Based on historical fact where Chief Steward Vatel lays on lavish hospitality for King Louis XIV visiting his impoverished master, the attention to detail is brilliantly handled. Apart from Depardieu, the rest of the leads are English-speaking by birth, but this doesn't necessarily add to the film's appeal. Uma Thurman is unremarkable as a woman of the court who befriends Vatel and Tim Roth always looks frighteningly weird in period togs and wigs. However, on balance, the movie deserves a kinder fate.

Operation Petticoat (1959) and Father Goose (1964): These are the only two of Cary Grant's late films (post-North by Northwest) which have never held a particularly high place in my affections and which I have not added to my collection. I therefore felt they were worth a reappraisal, especially since the former is considered 'hilarious' in certain quarters. I can't quite agree with that although Grant and Tony Curtis play well off each other. What I can state unequivocably is that Grant is never less than wonderfully watchable, even when given a thankless role as a crusty loner faced with a cloying Leslie Caron and a bunch of schoolgirls in the latter movie. The other thought that struck me as I rewatched this pair is how much George Clooney has begun to affect Grant's mannerisms when playing comedy.

We Own the Night (2007): I found this policier starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg as estranged brothers far more involving that expected. The first film in seven years from writer-director James Grey whose "Yards" also paired these two actors, it was a good, solid action movie which effectively used its Brooklyn Russian-mafia background.

Hold That Co-ed (1938): Of course this would be the movie that I most enjoyed revisiting over the last few days since it stars my great fave John Barrymore. Like most of his late movies when he was permanently in his cups, he still manages to be more than amusing as a Huey-Longish type state governor seeking to run for the Senate and who depends upon building the fortunes of a down-at-the-heel local college and football team as the cornerstone of his would-be popularity. Of course this is all absolute nonsense, but the movie is so good-spirited with cheery performances from George Murphy, Jack Haley, Joan Davis (as an unbelievable football genius), and another of my favourites, Donald Meek, that I enjoyed every minute of this diversion.

What I tend to avoid when doing these occasional multiple reviews is any dwelling on the dross that I have also seen recently, since they seldom bear even thinking about a second time. Foremost amongst these in recent days is the Molly Shannon vehicle Year of the Dog (2007) which was promoted as a black comedy, but rather was something that belonged in a black hole!