User Reviews

So says papa Cary Grant sitting in his very crowded dining room forced to listen to everything that's wrong with him and his generation from his ungrateful daughters who exclaim "Bicker, bicker, bicker" every time he and wife Myrna Loy have a lively discussion. He's already frustrated by finding Loy's underthings in his sock drawer and arguments about money so when Grant's attorney pal Melvyn Douglas shows up with warnings of how Grant's desire to tear down a wall will cost him $3000. The picture of an old American Connecticut farmhouse influences Grant to consider restoring it to glory, of course with wifey Loy's touch as well, and just 58 minutes from the noises and crowds of the big apple.

As Grant and Loy look on at the delapetated structure, they each have their own ideas of what the finished house will look like, and that's where the charm of the light hearted plot comes in that everybody can pretty much relate to. "Good thing that there are two of you", Douglas says upon seeing the house. One to love it, the other to hold it up." Everybody offers advice from tearing it down to redesigning it to sticking with the small apartment in Manhattan.

Then there's Loy's choices of colors, particularly the shade of blue. It's the most famous scene that often shows up in movie tributes, and truly stands the test of time. Loy and Grant are absolutely perfect with a terrific screenplay and direction. Of the supporting players, Louise Beavers stands out as the housekeeper who aids Grant in his search for the "Wham" campaign slogan. Sharyn Moffatt and Connie Marshall are very funny as the precocious daughters, and Reginald Denny quite droll as the architect. A true delight in every way possible, this has stood the test of time and then some!

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

The year is 1948. Lots of returning G.I.s are struggling to adjust to post-War America and Hollywood responded with film noir. But the other side to that scene is about those who made it through the war intact, or who returned and started a family and got a job and were ready for the American Dream.

Enter the Blandings family and the beginning of the rush to suburbia. The famous Levittown middle class housing project got going full steam in 1948. Bedrooms for the kids, a lawn of your own, and, alas, a long commute were going to be the new reality.

The comic first few minutes (with a sarcastic voice-over) show New York to be crazed mayhem, which sets you up for the last few minutes showing a much less sarcastic mayhem in Connecticut. Historic preservation is years away for most Americans, so the old house and its lovely stone foundations inspire only the intoned, "Tear it down." And the dream house, on the salary of this not so unbland rich advertising executive (Cary Grant), goes up. His wife, also not completely bland, played by Myrna Loy, manages to make her spoiled greed cute, if unreasonable to both her husband and to us. Throw in a very contrived conflict of an old love interest of hers, and you have the gist of it all.

As much as I love both Loy and Grant very much, and was glad to see this again, the writing and editing and filming struck me as clunky and uninspired. It's funny at times, for sure, but with lots of groans or lulls between. I know this is a matter of taste, and I see a lot of people give this movie high marks, and I don't blame them. But just a heads up on it. I just watched some earlier Grant screwballs (Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday) and saw Loy in the Thin Man series, and maybe Mr. Blandings is just thin going by comparison. Director H.C. (Henry, not Harry) Potter was unknown then as now, and you get a feeling another director, a Cukor or a Hawks, might have pulled of a different feeling with the same parts.

The basic story was timely then and might make sense to anyone now who has tried to rehab an old house or build a new one. That was the hook for me, and I felt for Mr. Blandings. However, the little tensions that make for comic, not tragic, possibility are diffused almost as soon as they begin. You'll see this most in the hinted at jealousy Mr. Blandings has for the sidekick adviser played by Melvyn Douglas. When Blandings suspects some foulplay with his wife you see Grant's face come alive, and then a minute later Mrs. Blandings (Loy) has convinced him it's not true. All is well. Back to drab wisecracks and stereotyped construction workers.

This is not really a screwball comedy so much as a screwy one, silly and restrained in some wrong places. Character actors are, normally, supposed to have character, and too often little bit parts that have potential come out all permanent press, from Douglas to the secretary in Mr. Blandings's office. The African-American maid is a wonderful, lively actress and brief gust of fresh air, but she is also typecast. This isn't so rare to mention in this period, but the plot brings attention to it because she invents the very phrase that Mr. Blandings is being paid big bucks to come up with, and Blandings uses it. What does she get? A ten dollar raise.

Social justice, not.

Watch this movie for purely frivolous entertainment, which it can be at its best.

I have seen this movie several times, and not once has it ever struck me as funny. There are a few slightly amusing moments, when the couple first are shown the house by realtor Ian Wolfe, but most of the movie is them getting more into debt, and more upset with each other, all over this great idea to build a new house.

I just don't see the humor in Cary Grant's character blundering into one bad decision after another, and the rising tension that marks the film. To be honest, I would be rather suspicious too, if an old friend always seemed to be hanging around when I wasn't there. The idea that Melvyn Douglas and Myrna Loy might be cheating on Cary Grant doesn't seem all that far fetched.

For an alleged comedy, there's a really bleak quality to this story. The way it's all conveniently wrapped up at the end is just a little too neat for me, after all the agony this family has gone through.Maybe the movie has been misunderstood as a comedy, when it is in fact a bitter satire on the pitfalls of building a home. Satire is not the same thing as comedy, though it may use humor to make a point.

There are very few old movies I dislike, but to be honest, this just doesn't work for me. I find too much real bitterness in it to make it work as the comedy it's supposed to be.