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.
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.