Thanks again to Domino and Imbecile (how's that for a comedy team).
1) His Girl Friday
2) Only Angels Have Wings
3) Holiday
4) Notorious
5) I Was a Male War Bride
6) North by Northwest
7) Charade
8) Suspicion
9) Gunga Din
10) The Bishop’s Wife
11) Bringing Up Baby
12) To Catch a Thief
13) Crisis
14) Kiss Them For Me
15) Thirty-Day Princess
16) Kiss and Make Up
17) The Awful Truth
18) Blonde Venus
19) The Grass Is Greener
20) An Affair to Remember
The Worst:
Howards of Virginia--Blus was right. This film is awful, its heroes are all awful, and even Grant is awful (just constant shouting).
Operation Petticoat
Every Girl Should Be Married--In which Betsy Drake makes Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby seem sane, and without the compensation of zany energy to boot. Still, this and Room for One More indicate that while Drake wasn't a good actress, she did seem to have knack for hitting some strange borderland between passive-aggression and obliviousness, which makes her perfectly disquieting in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
Not Seen: Madame Butterfly, Alice in Wonderland, Suzy, The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss, When You're in Love, Toast of New York, Once Upon a Time, None but the Lonely Heart, The Pride and the Passion
Toland's Mitchell wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 6:20 pm
I can see both sides of that debate. I've watched 35 Cary Grant movies, which admittedly is not even close to his total filmography. However, from what I've seen he often played similar characters, the charming gentleman. I don't recall him ever playing a villain (although
Suspicion provided a villainous perspective from the main character that wound up being false in the end, so does that count?). Was he a villain anywhere else? Did he ever star in a Western? These aren't rhetorical questions, I'm curious to know more about what I haven't seen yet. Nevertheless, I wouldn't say this is evidence of lack of talent. On the contrary, I'd say he was very talented at what he did, and his body of work adds up to one of the finest in Hollywood history.
I think
Sinners in the Sun is the only time Grant played a true villain (cad who pursues the heroine while his ex commits suicide), he's a heel if not villain in
The Eagle and the Hawk, and there's other nebulous gray roles (
Sylvia Scarlett). But this project gave me an appreciation for how much Grant was able to stretch his persona--the charming gentleman, but able to push it up to domineering, near toxic levels (His Girl Friday), repress it until it pops like a cork (Bringing Up Baby), hone it till it just projects confidence (Destination Tokyo, Crisis) or even downright saintliness (Bishop's Wife, People Will Talk), or flatten it till its essentially a blank canvas to project onto (Charade). Tom Hanks usually gets named as the heir to Jimmy Stewart, but I think Grant may the truer antecedent.
