Cary Grant Movies

This program features a compilation of promotional film shorts produced during the 1930s as part of the Hollywood on Parade and Star Reporter in Hollywood series. A number of the Parade shorts were produced or directed by Lewis Lewyn and they often provided songs and comedy sketches. It's generally noted that these pseudo newsreels were produced by Paramount, yet the shorts feature stars from other studios as well, such as the great Buster Keaton, who was an MGM star in the '30s. He's seen here driving his "Land Yacht," a 30-foot vehicle that could sleep six people in two bedrooms and had a kitchen and a dining room. Highlights of the video also include a sequence from Hollywood on Parade No. 8 (1933), in which actress Helen Kane plays Betty Boop in a brief encounter with Bela Lugosi as a wax museum Dracula who comes to life. Other stars featured include Fredric March, Ginger Rogers, Burns and Allen, and Gary Cooper. ~ Steve Blackburn, All Movie Guide

Though many fans will always fondly recall Judy Garland's wonderful portrayal of young Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Garland herself was apparently most proud of the role she played in A Star Is Born. In this film, which opened in 1954, Garland portrayed an actress who sees her career blossom as her husband's declines. This video features clips from the film's glamorous premiere held on September 29, 1954, at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre. Viewers will see a vast array of other stars arriving at this event that foreshadowed Garland's Academy Award nomination for this role. An added segment features Garland and Ken Murray, who was well-known for his "Hollywood Home Movies." ~ Elizabeth Smith, All Movie Guide

The 28-volume Hollywood Collection offers a comprehensive library chronicling the lives of Tinsel Town's famed studio performers. This video chronicles the life of the debonair megastar whose sophisticated and suave style made him a favorite among female moviegoers. British-born Cary Grant overcame an impoverished and motherless childhood and made 70 motion pictures. Narrated by Richard Kiley, this intimate story of Grant's career is conveyed through interviews with colleagues Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Deborah Kerr, Leslie Caron, and Stanley Kramer. Video highlights present clips from Grant's most memorable films: An Affair to Remember, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, His Girl Friday, and more. Other tapes in the biography series include The Hollywood Collection: Anthony Quinn -- An Original, The Hollywood Collection: Gregory Peck -- His Own Man, and The Hollywood Collection: Audrey Hepburn Remembered. ~ Sally Barber, All Movie Guide

This represents MGM's 1976 sequel to its enormously successful compilation film That's Entertainment (1974). In lieu of the multi-narrator device of the first film, director Gene Kelly chooses to limit the hosting chores to two people: himself, and his friendly rival Fred Astaire. Another departure from the first film was the decision to include comedy and dramatic highlights from MGM's past, with such stars as Greta Garbo (seen in a montage of "I want to be alone"s), Greer Garson, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, Red Skelton, the Marx Brothers, and Laurel and Hardy (though the last-named team's vignettes are culled from Hal Roach productions which were merely released by MGM). Be sure and catch That's Entertainment from the beginning for Saul Bass' opening credits, incorporating a variety of title-sequence styles: waves crashing on the shore, pages turning in a book, and a J. Arthur Rank-style gong. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cary Grant made his last film appearance before retiring from the screen in this agreeable piece of fluff based on the 1943 comedy The More the Merrier, which dealt with the romantic complications inherent in the housing shortage in Washington D.C. during World War II. In Walk, Don't Run, the story is updated to a housing shortage in Tokyo during the Olympic Games of 1964. British industrialist Sir William Rutland (Cary Grant) arrives in Tokyo two days before the start of the games and cannot find any suitable accommodations. As a result, he answers an ad for an "apartment to share" and convinces the occupant, Christine Easton (Samantha Eggar), to rent a room to him. The next day he meets the handsome Steve Davis (Jim Hutton), a member of the United States Olympic walking team. Steve also needs a room and convinces Christine to take him on as a second tenant. After meeting Christine's pompous fiancé, Julius D. Haversack (John Standing), Rutland begins to ply his matchmaking skills in an effort to get Christine and Steve to fall in love with each other. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

When people refer to Doris Day as "the world's oldest professional virgin," they generally have the 1962 comedy That Touch of Mink in mind. It isn't that Cathy Timberlake (Day) is above a bit of hanky-panky; it's just that she wants such tangibles as a marriage license and wedding ring first. Thus, when playboy businessman Philip Shayne (Cary Grant) begins actively pursuing Cathy (they "met cute" when Philip's limo splashed mud on the hapless Cathy), she won't say "I will" until he says "I do." She is of the idealistic opinion that she can bring out the best intentions in him, even when he repeatedly tips off his worst intentions by inviting her to accompany him to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Bermuda. After not a few complications and misunderstands, Cathy finally finagles a proposal out of Philip. The film is essentially much ado about nothing, but it is so well-acted and attractively photographed that the audiences are willing to go along for the ride. The high-powered supporting cast includes Gig Young as Roger, Philip's moralistic financial advisor; Audrey Meadows as Connie, Cathy's wise-cracking roommate; Alan Hewitt as Dr. Gruber, a confused psychiatrist; John Astin as Beasley, Cathy's slimy would-be beau; Dick Sargent as a neurotic honeymooner; and an unbilled Richard Deacon as an all-around letch. Best scene: the baseball-dugout rhubarb involving New York Yankees Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While having lunch at the Plaza Hotel in New York, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) has the bad luck to call for a messenger just as a page goes out for a "George Kaplan." From that moment, Thornhill finds that he has stepped into a nightmare -- he is quietly abducted by a pair of armed men out of the hotel's famous Oak Room and transported to a Long Island estate; there, he is interrogated by a mysterious man (James Mason) who, believing that Roger is George Kaplan, demands to know what he knows about his business and how he has come to acquire this knowledge. Roger, who knows nothing about who any of these people are, can do nothing but deny that he is Kaplan or that he knows what they're talking about. Finally, his captors force a bottle of bourbon into Roger and put him behind the wheel of a car on a dangerous downhill stretch. Through sheer luck and the intervention of a police patrol car and its driver (John Beradino), Roger survives the ride and evades his captors, and is booked for drunk driving. He's unable to persuade the court, the county detectives, or even his own mother (Jesse Royce Landis) of the truth of his story, however -- Thornhill returns with them to the mansion where he was held, only to find any incriminating evidence cleaned up and to learn that the owner of the house is a diplomat, Lester Townsend (Philip Ober), assigned to the United Nations. He backtracks to the hotel to find the room of the real George Kaplan, only to discover that no one at the hotel has ever actually seen the man. With his kidnappers once again pursuing him, Thornhill decides to confront Townsend at the United Nations, only to discover that he knows nothing of the events on Long Island, or his house being occupied -- but before he can learn more, Townsend gets a knife in his back in full view of 50 witnesses who believe that Roger did it. Now on the run from a murder charge, complete with a photograph of him holding the weapon plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country, Thornhill tries to escape via train -- there he meets the cooly beautiful Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who twice hides him from the police, once spontaneously and a second time in a more calculated rendezvous in her compartment that gets the two of them together romantically, at least for the night. By the next day, he's off following a clue to a remote rural highway, where he is attacked by an armed crop-dusting plane, one of the most famous scenes in Hitchcock's entire film output. Thornhill barely survives, but he does manage to learn that his mysterious tormentor/interrogator is named Phillip Vandamm, and that he goes under the cover of being an art dealer and importer/exporter, and that Eve is in bed with him in every sense of the phrase -- or is she? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The culture of a Caribbean island drenched in sun and rhythmic music, and the calypso sounds themselves are the main focus of this thinly plotted drama about a racially mixed family. Popular activities like cockfights and festival occasions interrupt the story of Resy (Sally Neal), the attractive mulatto whose family is intent on marrying her off to a Caucasian man. For even on these Caribbean islands, a lighter skin color is unfortunately associated with the upper classes. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Adapted by Norman Krasna from his play Kind Sir, Indiscreet stars Ingrid Bergman as a wealthy actress and Cary Grant as an international financial wizard. While Grant is visiting London, Bergman's sister Phyllis Calvert and brother-in-law Cecil Parker introduce Grant to Bergman. Because he feels he has no time for marriage, Grant pretends to be married to avoid romantic tangles. Bergman, however, finds the prospect of an affair with a married man to be quite exhilarating. When she discovers the truth, Bergman gets even with the now-smitten Grant by faking a romance with an ex-boy friend--ordering luckless chauffeur David Kossoff to pose as her beau. A comedy by grownups, about grownups and for grownups (at least by 1958 standards), Indiscreet proved to be far more successful as a film than as a stage play. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As was his custom, producer/director Stanley Kramer made some iconoclastic casting decisions when mounting his $5 million production The Pride and the Passion. Adapted from The Gun, a novel by C. S. Forester, the film is set in Spain during the Napoleonic wars. Captain Anthony Trumbull (Cary Grant), a British military officer, is ordered to retrieve a large and unwieldly abandoned cannon, then transport the weapon to the British lines, where it will be used to attack the French garrison at Avila. Hotheaded guerilla leader Miguel (Frank Sinatra) agrees to help Trumball move the cannon over hill and dale, even though he hates the Englishman's guts. Tagging along on the arduous odysseys is Miguel's fiery mistress Juana (Sophia Loren), who develops a yearning for the stolid Trundall (then-lovers Loren and Grant would later be teamed in Houseboat). Pride and the Passion made a mint at the box-office for both Kramer and United Artists. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A jewel thief is at large on the Riviera, and all evidence points to retired cat burglar Cary Grant. Escaping the law, Grant heads to the Cote D'Azur, where he is greeted with hostility by his old partners in crime. All of them had been pardoned due to their courageous activities in the wartime Resistance, and all are in danger of arrest thanks to this new crime wave. But Grant pleads innocence, and vows to find out who's been copying his distinctive style. With the reluctant aid of detective John Williams, Grant launches his investigation by keeping tabs on the wealthiest vacationers on the Riviera. One such person is heavily bejeweled Jessie Royce Landis, who is as brash and outspoken as her daughter Grace Kelly is quiet and demure. But "still waters run deep," as they say, and soon Kelly is amorously pursuing the far-from-resistant Grant. Part of Kelly's attraction to Grant is the possibility that he is the thief; the prospect of danger really turns this gal on. Being Cary Grant, of course, he can't possibly be guilty, which is proven in due time. But by film's end, it's obvious that Kelly has fallen hard for Grant, crook or no crook. Occasionally written off as a lesser Alfred Hitchcock film (did we really need that third-act fashion show?), To Catch a Thief is actually as enjoyable and engaging now as it was 40 years ago. Though the Riviera location photography is pleasing, our favorite scene takes place in a Paramount Studios mockup of a luxury hotel suite, where Grant and Kelly make love while a fireworks display orgasmically erupts outside their window. And who could forget the scene where Jessie Royce Landis disdainfully stubs out a cigarette in an expensive plate of eggs? Adapted by frequent Hitchcock collaborator John Michael Hayes from a novel by David Dodge To Catch a Thief won an Academy Award for cinematographer Robert Burks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide