Cary Grant's 52nd film and his third film with Myrna Loy was Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House. The film was released on this date in 1948.
Summary:
Jim works in an advertising agency raising US$ 15,000.00 a year and feels uncomfortable in his apartment due to the lack of space.
Cast:
Cary Grant ... Jim Blandings
Myrna Loy ... Muriel Blandings
Melvyn Douglas ... Bill Cole
Reginald Denny ... Simms
Sharyn Moffett ... Joan Blandings
Connie Marshall ... Betsy Blandings
Louise Beavers ... Gussie
Ian Wolfe ... Smith
Harry Shannon ... Tesander
Tito Vuolo ... Mr. Zucca
Nestor Paiva ... Joe Apollonio
Jason Robards Sr. ... John Retch
Lurene Tuttle ... Mary
Lex Barker ... Carpenter Foreman
Emory Parnell ... Mr. PeDelford
Third of three movies starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, following Wings in the Dark (1935) and The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947).
At the end of the movie, Mr Blandings is reading the book that the movie is based on.
The house built for the movie still exists in Malibu, California at coordinates: 34 degrees 5' 41"N 118 degrees 42'43"W on the old 20th Century Fox Ranch.
As a promotional stunt, the studio had 73 replicas of the Blandings house built around the country. Many opened for house tours, with the proceeds going to charity, and some were raffled off. The stunt obviously worked, because the film was a box office hit.
In 1951, Cary Grant reprised his role as Jim Blandings for "Mr. and Mrs. Blandings," a weekly radio program. Betsy Drake, Grant's wife at the time, played Muriel Blandings while Gale Gordon played Bill Cole.
During production, the House Un-American Activity Committee began attacking the film industry. John Huston & William Wyler visited the set to ask Myrna Loy to help organize a committee of their own, which she did. She also donated $1,000 of her own money.
Muriel Blandings: I want it to be a soft green, not as blue-green as a robin's egg, but not as yellow-green as daffodil buds. Now, the only sample I could get is a little too yellow, but don't let whoever does it go to the other extreme and get it too blue. It should just be a sort of grayish-yellow-green. Now, the dining room. I'd like yellow. Not just yellow; a very gay yellow. Something bright and sunshine-y. I tell you, Mr. PeDelford, if you'll send one of your men to the grocer for a pound of their best butter, and match that exactly, you can't go wrong! Now, this is the paper we're going to use in the hall. It's flowered, but I don't want the ceiling to match any of the colors of the flowers. There's some little dots in the background, and it's these dots I want you to match. Not the little greenish dot near the hollyhock leaf, but the little bluish dot between the rosebud and the delphinium blossom. Is that clear? Now the kitchen is to be white. Not a cold, antiseptic hospital white. A little warmer, but still, not to suggest any other color but white. Now for the powder room - in here - I want you to match this thread, and don't lose it. It's the only spool I have and I had an awful time finding it! As you can see, it's practically an apple red. Somewhere between a healthy winesap and an unripened Jonathan. Oh, excuse me...
Mr. PeDelford: You got that Charlie?
Charlie, Painter: Red, green, blue, yellow, white.
Mr. PeDelford: Check.
Jim Blandings: What's with this kissing all of a sudden? I don't like it. Every time he goes out of this house, he shakes my hand and kisses you.
Muriel Blandings: Would you prefer it the other way around?
Jim Blandings: This little piggy went to market. A meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks. When they slipped him the axe. He KNEW he'd turn out to be Wham!
Jim Blandings: That's fine. For the rest of my life, I'll have to get up at 5 in the morning to catch the 6:15 train to get to my office at 8. It doesn't even open until 9, and I never get there until 10!
Muriel Blandings: Well, maybe if you start earlier, you can leave the office earlier.
Jim Blandings: To get home earlier, to get to bed earlier, to get up earlier, I suppose.
Bill Cole: Maybe you can get the railroad to push the train up to 4:15. Then you won't have to go to bed at all.
Muriel Blandings: Mr. Zucca explained he has to use dynamite to blast to get rid of the rock.
Mr. Zucca: That's no rock. That's a ledge.
Bill Cole: What Mr. Blandings means is, what precisely is a ledge?
Mr. Zucca: A ledge is like a big stone. Only it's bigger.
Jim Blandings: Like a boulder!
Mr. Zucca: No, like a ledge.
Jim Blandings: Water, Mr. Tesander.
Tesander: Yep.
Jim Blandings: At six feet.
Tesander: Yep.
Jim Blandings: And just over there, you had to go down 227 feet to hit the same water.
Tesander: Yep.
Jim Blandings: Now, how do you account for that, Mr. Tesander?
Tesander: Well, the way it appears to me, Mr. Blandings... over here the water is down around six feet. And over there it's down around 227 feet.
[Bill Cole repeats the last line in unison with Tesander who looks over his should at Cole]
Bill Cole: Yep.
When he sees an advertisement for a huge house for sale in the countryside of Connecticut for an affordable price, he drives with his wife and the real estate agent and decides to buy the old house without any technical advice.
A family friend, lawyer Bill Cole, sends an acquaintance engineer to inspect the house, and the man tells him that he should knock down the house and build another one.
Jim checks the information with other engineers and all of them condemn the place. Soon he finds that he bought a "money pit" instead of a dream house.
"Cary Grant giving one of his best portrayals as the frustrated advertising man..."
- Philip T. Hartung, Commonweal.
Cary Grant ... Jim Blandings
Myrna Loy ... Muriel Blandings
Melvyn Douglas ... Bill Cole
Reginald Denny ... Simms
Sharyn Moffett ... Joan Blandings
Connie Marshall ... Betsy Blandings
Louise Beavers ... Gussie
Ian Wolfe ... Smith
Harry Shannon ... Tesander
Tito Vuolo ... Mr. Zucca
Nestor Paiva ... Joe Apollonio
Jason Robards Sr. ... John Retch
Lurene Tuttle ... Mary
Lex Barker ... Carpenter Foreman
Emory Parnell ... Mr. PeDelford
Did You Know?
The house built for the movie still exists in Malibu, California at coordinates: 34 degrees 5' 41"N 118 degrees 42'43"W on the old 20th Century Fox Ranch.
As a promotional stunt, the studio had 73 replicas of the Blandings house built around the country. Many opened for house tours, with the proceeds going to charity, and some were raffled off. The stunt obviously worked, because the film was a box office hit.
In 1951, Cary Grant reprised his role as Jim Blandings for "Mr. and Mrs. Blandings," a weekly radio program. Betsy Drake, Grant's wife at the time, played Muriel Blandings while Gale Gordon played Bill Cole.
During production, the House Un-American Activity Committee began attacking the film industry. John Huston & William Wyler visited the set to ask Myrna Loy to help organize a committee of their own, which she did. She also donated $1,000 of her own money.
Quotes:
Muriel Blandings: I want it to be a soft green, not as blue-green as a robin's egg, but not as yellow-green as daffodil buds. Now, the only sample I could get is a little too yellow, but don't let whoever does it go to the other extreme and get it too blue. It should just be a sort of grayish-yellow-green. Now, the dining room. I'd like yellow. Not just yellow; a very gay yellow. Something bright and sunshine-y. I tell you, Mr. PeDelford, if you'll send one of your men to the grocer for a pound of their best butter, and match that exactly, you can't go wrong! Now, this is the paper we're going to use in the hall. It's flowered, but I don't want the ceiling to match any of the colors of the flowers. There's some little dots in the background, and it's these dots I want you to match. Not the little greenish dot near the hollyhock leaf, but the little bluish dot between the rosebud and the delphinium blossom. Is that clear? Now the kitchen is to be white. Not a cold, antiseptic hospital white. A little warmer, but still, not to suggest any other color but white. Now for the powder room - in here - I want you to match this thread, and don't lose it. It's the only spool I have and I had an awful time finding it! As you can see, it's practically an apple red. Somewhere between a healthy winesap and an unripened Jonathan. Oh, excuse me...
Mr. PeDelford: You got that Charlie?
Charlie, Painter: Red, green, blue, yellow, white.
Mr. PeDelford: Check.
Jim Blandings: What's with this kissing all of a sudden? I don't like it. Every time he goes out of this house, he shakes my hand and kisses you.
Muriel Blandings: Would you prefer it the other way around?
Jim Blandings: This little piggy went to market. A meek and as mild as a lamb. He smiled in his tracks. When they slipped him the axe. He KNEW he'd turn out to be Wham!
Jim Blandings: That's fine. For the rest of my life, I'll have to get up at 5 in the morning to catch the 6:15 train to get to my office at 8. It doesn't even open until 9, and I never get there until 10!
Muriel Blandings: Well, maybe if you start earlier, you can leave the office earlier.
Jim Blandings: To get home earlier, to get to bed earlier, to get up earlier, I suppose.
Bill Cole: Maybe you can get the railroad to push the train up to 4:15. Then you won't have to go to bed at all.
Muriel Blandings: Mr. Zucca explained he has to use dynamite to blast to get rid of the rock.
Mr. Zucca: That's no rock. That's a ledge.
Bill Cole: What Mr. Blandings means is, what precisely is a ledge?
Mr. Zucca: A ledge is like a big stone. Only it's bigger.
Jim Blandings: Like a boulder!
Mr. Zucca: No, like a ledge.
Cast.
Jim Blandings: Water, Mr. Tesander.
Tesander: Yep.
Jim Blandings: At six feet.
Tesander: Yep.
Jim Blandings: And just over there, you had to go down 227 feet to hit the same water.
Tesander: Yep.
Jim Blandings: Now, how do you account for that, Mr. Tesander?
Tesander: Well, the way it appears to me, Mr. Blandings... over here the water is down around six feet. And over there it's down around 227 feet.
[Bill Cole repeats the last line in unison with Tesander who looks over his should at Cole]
Bill Cole: Yep.
Lobby Cards:
"Just For the Sake of My Wife" - German Poster
Directed by H.C. Potter.
Distributed by RKO Radio Productions.
Running time: 94 minutes.
Artwork by Rebekah Hawley of Studio 36.
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