She Done Him Wrong (1933)

   "...as frank as an old Police Gazette, and much livelier and more picturesque."

With Mae West

She Done Him Wrong - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"She Done Him Wrong is something lustier, the overtly and successful predatory female against a colorful Bowery background.  It is as frank as an old Police Gazette, and much livelier and more picturesque.  It is an odd companion to be bracketed with Little Woman and State Fair  and Mama Loves Papa, but it belongs with them as a faithful bit of Americana.  Incidentally the overpowering Mae West personality shouldn't hide the fact that Lowell Sherman's direction figured pretty largely in the picture's effectiveness.

- National Board of Review Magazine

New Artwork by Rebekah Hawley at Studio36 -
Number 8 - She Done Him Wrong (Lobby Card Style)

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Enter Madame! (1935)

    "There's music, music everywhere..."

With Elissa Landi

Enter Madame!  - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Music's "in" for celluloid since the smash of Night of Love, so prepare for a deluge of temperamental opera singers on the screen as well as on Stage 2.  

Elissa Landi is about the most beautiful warbler you've seen (Mary Garden, please forgive me), and she sings magnificently, thanks to the smart dubbing of the Nina Koshetz voice.  Lovely 'Lissa is improving as an actress by leaps, and if sometimes she lands out-of-bounds in vivaciousness, I don't mind much.  

Gilda Varesi, author, starred in the play and though Miss Varesi collabed on the screen play, the yarn's tempo has been shifted from comedy drama to farce.  There's music, music everywhere, plus plenty of entertainment if you happen to be tone-deaf.  

Delia Robbia at twenty-five is a diva of world rep.  She surrounds herself with a mad, Sangercircus world which is shared by an entourage including a chef, maid and physician, all with ariaistic tendencies.  During a performance of "Tosca" in Italy, the soprano's train contacts a candle flame and tall-darknhandsome Cary Grant saves the lady from being scorched, though he himself is pretty well hotchacharred by love.  

Elissa and Cary marry and soon the guy finds himself spinning on a roundabout of concerts and tantrums.  Hubby wants to go to America, wifie promises to accompany him but signs for a tour at the last sec, so Cary goes home alone.  Elissa signs contract after contract, for she finds fame headier than marriage.  Cary threatens divorce, the songbird flies to America.  You guess the finale.  

Richard Bonelli sings Scarpia authoritatively.  Lynne Overman as the weary, pungent manager again proves his deft comedy talents.  He should draw longer assignments, for in a certain groove he's unsurpassed.  

Fast direction by Elliot Nugent is marred at times by overemphasis.  Camera work by Theodore Sparkuhl and William Mellor is distinguished.     

- Herb Sterne, Script

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Number 18 - Enter Madame!  (Lobby Card Style)

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Sylvia Scarlett (1936)

    "...overstrained performances, with the exception of that of Cary Grant..."

With Katharine Hepburn.

Sylvia Scarlett - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Story construction and development are beclouded, with resultant hop-skipping in the action, labored dialogue, and overstrained performances, with the exception of that of Cary Grant.  Mr. Grant's is the most convincing performance, in a role which is fresh, and at the same time contributes something towards stabilizing the action, a fact which may be of value in shaping the course of showmanship.

- Rovelstad, Motion Picture Herald

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Number 44 - Destination Tokyo (Lobby Card Style)

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Madame Butterfly (1932)

   "...the Japanese settings are almost always pretty..."

With Sylvia Sidney

Madame Butterfly - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"The plot of this film is taken from the Puccini opera and the incidental music is by the composer, but it does not attempt to be a reproduction of the opera.  The story is not very suitable for this new medium, and though the long-drawn tragedy might be bearable if it were expressed in music or poetry, without any such embellishment it is apt to be painfully pathetic.  Nevertheless, Miss Sylvia Sidney, who plays the part of the Japanese girl, acts with a grace and delicacy which are a great relief from this prolonged assault upon our emotions.  And the Japanese settings are almost always pretty; an admirable use is made of what Swinburne called "the fortuitous frippery of Fusi-yama."  Moreover, Miss Sidney fits so well into the setting that all the purely Japanese parts of the film have a certain style and consistency.  But the intrusion of the American lieutenant (Mr. Cary Grant) has as disturbing an effect on the film as he had on the unfortunate Madame Butterfly.  In fact, the inarticulate sentimentality of all the American characters seems to have been nicely calculated to sound a jarring note in this carefully constructed world of oriental conversion, and nothing is done to accommodate these two modes of feeling."

- The Times (London)

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Number 7 - Madame Butterfly (Lobby Card Style)

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Alice in Wonderland (1933)

   "...mild fun... trying to identify the Big Names hidden behind turtle shells and teddy-bear skins."

With The Mock Turtle costume.

Alice in Wonderland - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"Why mince matters? Alice in Wonderland is, to my sober (despite repeal) judgment, one of the worst flops of the cinema.  Paramount's first mistake was in attempting it.  The only person in Movieland to have done it is Walt Disney.  Mary Pickford, who once contemplated doing it, was right when she said that "Alice" should be made only in cartoons.  

So - with a fine script (Joe Mankiewicz and William Cameron Menzies), delightful music (Dmitri Tiomkin), a splendid director (Norman McLeod), and about fifty of our best actors and actresses, the picture, when it isn't dull, is still utterly uninspired. 

English children who still read Alice in Wonderland may get a mild kick out of it.  I doubt if our young sophisticates will.  It's a cinch that all the grown ups will get is the mild fun of trying to identify the Big Names hidden behind turtle shells and teddy-bear skins.  Even when they do occasionally recognize a voice they will still wonder why all these high salaries were hidden beneath bushels of props.  Extras, or even children, would have been adequate to most of the parts.  No acting was required.  Indeed production costs could have been cut tremendously by letting cheap actors play the parts and then hiring Big Names to register five minutes of dialogue easily dubbed in.  

The second mistake was in choosing a young lady to play the five or six-year-old part of Alice.  Charlotte Henry is a comely youngster with an intelligent face, who looks as though she would be more interested in Vance Hoyt's nature studies in Script than in Fairyland.  She tries hard to look wonder-eyed but can't quite make it.  And with all our wonderful kid actors!  

Even so there was still a chance to make a picture of fairylike charm.  In all the arts there is no medium that lends itself to fantasy like the movie camera.  By soft focus, shooting through silk, and other technical tricks, scenes can be given an elusive dreamlike quality that eloquently visualizes the subjective mind.  Alice goes to sleep and dreams her trip to Wonderland, but we see both her and her dream in hard reality, with the flat lighting and sharp focus of the objective world.  Never for a moment are we in dreamland; we are on Stage Four, witnessing the technical staff and prop boys doing their stuff.  Even much of this is bad.  When Alice flies through the air, she is obviously hanging by a wire (remember how well that was done in Peter Pan - also by Paramount?) and when she is falling down the well, she is still hanging by a wire.  Nor are her skirts blown while falling.  It's hard to write a review like this, for practically everybody who had anything to do with the picture is a Scripter, but when a picture is a flop, it's a flop, and it's silly to alibi.  The biggest mistake was in undertaking it at all."

- Bob Wagner, Script

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Number 13 - Alice in Wonderland (Lobby Card Style)

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On this day...Sinners in the Sun (1932)

This was Cary Grant's second full length feature film, released on May 13th, 1932.

The main stars were Carole Lombard and Chester Morris, in a story of love and riches and the affect one has on the other.

"Sinners in the Sun is, in effect, a display of luxury, and the tale of a man and a girl who temporarily despise love in a cottage, but virtuously return to it at last as being of more importance than the limousines, the Long Island parties, the fashion-parades, and the underclothes that enrich their unregenerate interlude" - The Times (London)

Cary Grant played the role of Ridgeway.

Cary Grant with Carole Lombard.

Cary Grant as Ridgeway, with Carole Lombard(Doris) and Pierre De Ramey(Louis)

Lobby Card

With Rita La Roy(Lil), Carole Lombard(Doris), Walter Bryon(Eric Nelson).

Directed by Alexander Hall.

Running time: 70 minutes.

Produced and Distributed by Paramount Publix.

From a story "Beach-Comber" by Mildred Cram.

My favourite film of the 1930's...The Awful Truth.

The Awful Truth, was released in 1937, and directed by Leo McCarey.

Its a classic screwball comedy that sees Cary Grant becoming the complete package as a screen actor.

Playing opposite Irene Dunne, who is so funny, in the

role of his estranged wife.

They play the roles of Jerry and Lucy Warriner, a Manhattan society couple who are bent on divorce.
In the 90 days it takes for the divorce to become final, they embark on a new relationship and at the same time do whatever it takes to sabotage the other's budding romance.

Great performance too, by Ralph Bellamy, who gets caught up in all the chaos. So good, he received an Oscar nomination!

The 1930's...

Between 1932 and 1939, Cary Grant released over 30 full length feature films.

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