November 2016:
My fascination with Carole Lombard continues - her face when attempting to fish, her cute scar, her graceful stoicism - in duet with Cary Grant's unhappily married neighbour. Indeed, they are matched by Kay Francis as the manipulative and utterly callous wife. Charles Coburn is the misunderstanding father, Maurice Moskowitz a useful 11th hour doctor. Peggy Ann Garner is Carole's cute daughter.
Roy Webb's music typically adept, J.Roy Hunt working in greys.
Now: Richard Sherman adapted Bessie Brewer's unremarkable novel 'Memory of Love'. Should mention Helen Vinson as the horribly flirtatious 'friend', Katharine Alexander as the sister.
Lombard's New York address is 5 West 10th Avenue - the Village - how cool.
As screen shots below testify, Cary Grant is as good as Lombard. But she's so natural...
OK, Once Upon A Honeymoon is a very interesting film, and thanks to Peter Bogdanovich for shining a light in this most interesting director who has been mentioned many times in these pages, for example for Make Way for Tomorrow and Love Affair.
This one is kind of weird, but I'd argue it still works. The director's deft touch is very much in evidence, for example in the splendidly funny and really quite erotic measuring scene, and in the playing of Grant with Ginger Rogers (complete with ridiculous accent), and the little touches of things all over the place. But this romantic comedy is supplanted on a story of the advancement of the Nazis - Rogers has married one for the money. He is Walter Slezak, who of course we knew from Lifeboat, and he's rather good again (poor guy getting typecast as the Nazi). So you also get savage moments, like the violent killings of good guys Albert Bassermann and Albert Dekker, or the awful moment that the couple are confused for Jews and about to face a terrible fate. It's slightly trippy.
And I think this conflict makes the film less successful in people's minds - it only has a 6.4 IMDB rating, for example, and Maltin only awards it **1/2, commenting 'strange but intriguing curio.. some boring stretches do it in'. The RKO story wrote it off as 'singularly tasteless... the stupidity and callousness of this very expensive undertaking'. But Time Out finds it rather more interesting, noting the Baron cutting up a cake representing Czechoslovakia, or the clock with the swastika as hands.
No - I think it's terrific throughout. And probably way ahead of its time.
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| One of those great little McCarey touches |
It was photographed by George Barnes. Written by Sheridan Gibney from McCarey's story. Both were RKO films.
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