User Reviews

James Garner has always had a knack for making every character he's played his own. From his early T.V. days as western star Brent Maverick to the last series, The Rockford files. His ease to become the center attraction is a natural pose for such a talented individual. In this story directed by Joseph Pevney, he plays Millionaire tycoon, Cash McCall who's amiable gift for buying and quickly selling industrial real estate is surprisingly lucrative. That is until he meets with eye-candy Natalie Wood who plays Lory Austen, the beautiful daughter of Grant Austin (Dean Jagger) a retiring designer. With a top successful group of businessmen led by Winston Conway (E.G. Marshall), Gilmore Clark (Henry Jones) and Harrison Glenn (Edward Platt), he plans to reap a rich bonus with the biggest deal of his life. However, small incidents like his personal housekeeper Maude Kennard (Nina Foch) wrongly believing McCall is seeking her as a wife and his number one business competitor, General Danvers (Roland Winters) believes McCall is trying to cheat him, are becoming more than annoying. All in all, this Garner vehicle is fun in a number of ways, but all end up creating the correct imagines originally written by author Cameron Hawley. ****

Cameron Hawley's novel about the politics inherent in corporate boardrooms became the essential business drama Executive Suite (1954). With that film's Oscar nominated cinematographer (George J. Folsey) and supporting actress (Nina Foch) as well as Dean Jagger and character actor Edgar Stehli, this one was made into a comedy featuring James Garner (in the title role) and Natalie Wood. It was adapted by Lenore J. Coffee and Marion Hargrove, and directed by Joseph Pevney.

The story has enough misdirection (and at least one dead end) in it to keep it interesting, even if (at times) it gets somewhat confusing, but Garner's charm and Wood's natural beauty makes it eminently watchable.

The cast also includes E.G. Marshall, Henry Jones, Otto Kruger, Roland Winters and Edward Platt as key players in the various dealings by McCall, an elusive character whose reputation is not unlike Wall Street (1987)'s Gordon Gekko.

McCall wants to buy Grant Austen's (Jagger) plastics company, in part because Austen's daughter is Lory (Wood), a woman with whom he has an unrequited past. Jones (whose boss is Platt) plays McCall's associate, Marshall his lawyer and Kruger his banker. Winters and Foch (her boss is Stehli) are the foe and foil that add conflict to the initially smooth transaction and romance.

When Natalie Wood was in her prime, she was at the top of the biz, stunningly beautiful, sharp, but accessible. And no one played the all-american stud better than Jim Garner.

Call it a bedroom farce if you like but Cash McCall combines a lot of wheeling and dealing with a good old fashioned boy-meets-girl to make a very pleasing movie.

At first glance, McCall (Garner) is part playboy, part ruthless businessman, but we know better; that his heart of gold belongs only to Lory Austen (Wood), a woman he met last Summer, and he's thought of nothing but her since.

Standard fare, well done with attractive stars, that alone puts it in the upper 20% as far as I'm concerned. Enjoy it.

Dean Jagger was Elvis' father in King Creole, and he is Natalie Wood's father in Cash McCall. This movie is from 1960, right about the time James Garner left the Maverick TV series due to his contract dispute with Warner Brothers. The movie is very businessy and very New Yorkish, white men in suits and ties. Garner is a young wheeler dealer who buys Jagger's plastic company, then sets his sights on Natalie. Garner says he thoroughly enjoys making money, so his character has something in common with Bret Maverick, although Bret made his playing poker. Bret was not the marrying kind, while Cash McCall is. I was 14 when this movie was in theaters and remember it being advertised in the local paper. I finally watched it online.

James Garner makes a dashing young entrepreneur of the business world in Cash McCall, the second of two films made from Cameron Hawley's business world novels, the other being the acclaimed Executive Suite. Hawley certainly knew how to capture the business world well and put a proper face on it.

Usually it's not a real good idea to mix business with pleasure, but in Cash McCall, Garner succeeds quite well. I now know where some of the plot of Grease came from. If you'll remember John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John have a summer fling which ends, but then find themselves in the same school in different social circles.

Cash McCall begins with Garner already having had that fling with Natalie Wood on vacation in Maine and he discovers she's the daughter of Dean Jagger, president of a plastics firm he's looking to acquire. When he discovers who she is it does complicate matters, but Garner is a most resourceful man. In the end it all works out to everyone's satisfaction, but there are a few bumps in the road. Those bumps are what the film is all about.

James Garner has played so many con men on the big and small screen it would have been an easy matter for him to slip into that familiar characterization for him. But he plays this one absolutely straight and does quite well with the part. Of course if he had been anything less than up front he wouldn't have gotten Wood. Natalie was just radiant in her role as the Philadelphia Main Line princess, a bit more human than Tracy Samantha Lord of The Philadelphia Story.

Besides Dean Jagger, the leads are backed by an established group of players portraying various business types as Edward Platt, E.G. Marshall, Otto Kruger, Parley Baer, and Roland Winters. Two performances that are really outstanding are Nina Foch as the hotel chief housekeeper at the place where Garner resides occupying an entire floor and part of another and Henry Jones as an efficiency expert who Garner recruits.

I'm surprised that Cash McCall was not taken up as material for a prime time soap opera in the Eighties, the decade of such. It certainly has all the ingredients.

Still it remains as one of James Garner's best early film performances and usually on the top 10 list for his fans.

A hot shot business man buys failing businesses and manages to sell them for profit. It seems the filmmakers were going for riveting drama about big business and acquisitions. What they end up with has all the excitement of reading stock quotes. There's endless discussion about business dealings that is not the least bit interesting, which is a shame because this one has a nice cast. Garner is well suited to the title role, although his wardrobe looks rather comical. As his love interest, Wood is not given much to do. The supporting cast features many familiar faces, including Foch, Jagger, Marshall, Jones, Kruger, and Platt.

When you first hear of this flick, you think it is like most of Garner's "Light Comedy" from the 60's - Not so. This film shows the a steamy underside of the Big Business "Scene" and the kind of trickery that goes on... And how even an honest down to earth deal could be made to look like a swindle, with a little jealousy and backstabbing added when least expected- And for that you have to give proper credit to Nina Koch for playing a kind of reverse "Erica Martin" from Executive Suite.

Garner is surrounded with some of the great character actors of the time: Dean Jagger, E. G. Marshall (From "12 Angry Men"), Otto Kruger (From Hitchcock's "Saboteur" and "Magnificent Obsession"), Edward Platt ("Chief" from "Get Smart").

And of course Natalie Wood, and in this film she gives one of her best... She is an absolute firecracker. I like the fact that the interaction between Garner and Wood is a little subdued.

One thing that is amazing, is that this was directed by Joe Pevney, who directed some of the best episodes of Star Trek Original Series.

Starts well with some very trendy opening credits for 1959, then it quickly establishes itself in cardboard Hollywoodland with lots of dialogue to tell the story. (It seems like Warner Brothers were trying to make a movie star out of James Garner, who was the lead in their TV western series 'Maverick', but they've confined him to a low budget and lashings of TV-type dialogue.) He's suitably smarmy as a dodgy businessman, but not particularly convincing, neither are the sets. Much attention from wardrobe and make-up departments is lavished on Natalie Wood (his love interest) and she looks gorgeous. Her father Dean Jagger is supposed to be a successful businessman who has built up a plastics business from nothing, but he plays it (as written) like a sweet old uncle. Henry Jones is nicely ironic, and Nina Foch, as always, is delightful. There's a flashback encounter between Natalie and James: they meet at a dance in Maine; later she suddenly appears in Maine cabin, soaked from the torrential rain outside, he goes into the bathroom to get her a robe, and she takes off all her clothes - knowing that he's coming back. He sees her, likes what he sees; she's humiliated, puts on the robe, and dashes back into the rain, later claiming that he made her feel 'cheap'. Very silly. The rest of the film is not silly, just dull: well-paced business dealings, some romance,some pithy lines and tons of talk, in a completely artificial world.

The best part of this Technicolor exercise is the light it shines on high-power business dealings and how these were treated in the Production Code 1950's-- and is worth a quick few words.

In that Cold War decade, Hollywood discovered the drama of corporation boardrooms and big business in such films as the ruthless Patterns (1956), the intrigues of Executive Suite (1954), and the comedic Solid Gold Cadillac (1956). All in all, these movies hold up well despite the passage of years. The trick for films of this type was to be realistic enough with the big money scheming to hold audience interest without at the same time indicting the upper tiers of capitalism. For to do the latter would, among other reasons, serve the interests of the Soviet side of the Cold War then at its peak. As a result, in such movies conscience or a force for good usually prevails at the last minute over ruthless business connivings no matter how unconvincing the abrupt triumph. And that's very much the case in the otherwise routine Cash McCall.

At first, McCall is characterized as a corporate vulture—a wheeler-dealer who buys up struggling companies, disassembles them for profit, and then walks away from whatever communities he may have destroyed in the process. But, of course, it's hard to make a sympathetic lead out of such a ruthless character, even for such a likable personality as James Garner. So the screenplay begins to fudge. He's next characterized as a dis-assembler whose aim is to build up anew from the pieces, though the human consequences are not made clear. And finally, after a thorough conversion, he becomes a full-fledged business humanitarian putting communities first for reasons that also remain rather unclear, but does, of course, produce a happy ending. Thus, the ends of the Production Code, the Cold War, and audience expectations are duly served.

The movie itself is pretty unmemorable. To me the pairing of the mature Garner and the rather callow Wood seems a brittle one, no matter how much the winsome Wood is glamorized. Then too, Garner suppresses his charming Maverick side in the interests of getting into McCall's character, but in the process gives up his special appeal as an actor. On the other hand, it's a fine array of supporting players, especially Henry Jones whose Bassett- hound face registers an unusual array of subtle emotions. His is a very different appearance for that glamour-obsessed time period. Anyway, the movie's a decent enough entertainment, but outside of its wheeler-dealer instruction manual, remains pretty forgettable.

In many respects this looks like a 1980s film that has been moved through a hole in the time/space continuum into 1959. From a cynical 1990s perspective, much of it is probably a touch too sweet, especially the romance, but the way high-flying business is portrayed was way ahead of its time. It is very much as we would find it in mid-1980s films such as Wall Street or Other People's Money. In case some of the dialogue/monologue sounds familiar: Pretty Woman seems to have "borrowed" significant chunks.

Cash McCall (James Garner) is a slick amoral businessman known for buying faltering old companies and reselling them for profit. Grant Austen (Dean Jagger) is the head of Austen Plastics but he gets threatened by his biggest customer. He considers selling his company. Cash is interested and then he is presented to Grant's daughter Lory (Natalie Wood). Unbeknownst to her father, they have a tumultuous history.

McCall is basically Gordon Gekko but he doesn't have an iconic catch phrase and not nearly as unethical. He needs to be more unethical. This is not really a compelling business story and then it is limited as a romantic story as well. If he was actually guilty, the movie could build some real drama. The romance is limited in that it has uninteresting hurdles which is made up of bad sitcom writing. Apparently, the relationship has all the hurdles built in the summer before. They happened before the movie off-screen and there is little for it to move. There is a bad female villain who has her melodramatic scheme. There isn't any relationship drama that is truly dramatic. It may work better if the movie included that summer. I was hoping for better with Garner and Wood. I like them but the story isn't working that much.

This is a great, fun film with the feel of similar films of the era such as 1962's "That Touch of Mink," whose plot bears more than a passing resemblance to this film's.

James Garner is great as usual, as is the radiant Natalie Wood. Dean Jagger's performance as the plastic company patriarch strikes just the right note and Henry Jones does his usual excellent job as the somewhat smarmy assistant.

But one of the real stars of the film is its 1960 decor. It really sets the period but also has a very distinctive look that is now considered retro-"atomic chic" with more than a little "Googie" thrown in.

I've no idea why this film hasn't been released on DVD (it's perfect for anamorphic DVD at a 1.85:1 aspect ratio). If you don't want to rent or purchase the VHS tape, your only recourse is to await its very infrequent showings on cable (most recently on Encore's "Love" channel some six or so years ago.)

Cameron Hawley's book about ruthlessness and romance in the world of high finance becomes well-dressed but tepid star-vehicle for James Garner (then riding high on TV's "Maverick") and perpetual second-biller Natalie Wood (even after spending years in the business, Wood got stuck in the role of the 'love-interest' and had a tough time carving out her niche as a leading lady). Garner, pushing too hard as Cash McCall, probably had a lot more at stake with this film than his co-star did; playing the money-hungry tycoon in love with his business partner's daughter, Garner looks the part but isn't very exciting a presence. Elsewhere, Nina Foch is highly effective (and creepy) as an older lady who harbors a semi-fatal attraction for Cash, while Wood is attractive and feisty in a one-dimensional role. Overall results are distressingly bland. ** from ****

One of my favorite movies as a child. Look at her face in the close-ups, when the movie flashes back to their meeting in the rain at his mountain cabin! Such a romantic movie, and Ms. Woods' clothes are fabulous examples of 50s high fashion. And Cash Mc Call's penthouse is a perfect high-tech palace for the times.

Natalie has the doting parents we all wished we had back then and a mother who is worried this beautiful creature will be an old maid at 23. Ah, life was simple then.

The business oriented plot is engaging, the dialogue springy and believable for the times. Though marraige and family are still the only acceptable goals for good girls in this story, you don't care as you root for true love to conquor all and the cold business man to see the light and let the good guys win.

Rent it, if you have never seen it. An underappreciated gem. I wish I had told Ms. Wood how much I liked the film, the one time I met her in the late sixties, but she was rather pregnant at the time and not terribly concerned with her career.

I watched this solely because James Garner was in it and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Natalie Wood was beautiful! I thought the plot was somewhat hard to swallow - but it shows how much you would do for love! If you like this movie, rent "Wheeler-Dealers" with Mr. Garner and Lee Remick. It is hilarious!

Stock market tycoon James Garner (as Cash McCall) pursues pretty children's book illustrator Natalie Wood (as Lory). Previously, they had something of a summer romance, when Ms. Wood's character fell hopelessly and head over heels for Mr. Garner (as you will surely notice in the character's demeanor). Older divorcée Nina Foch (as Maude Kennard) is also hot for the "Maverick" TV star. Complicating matters, Wood is the daughter of businessman Dean Jagger (as Grant Austen), who owns the "Austen Plastics" company Garner hopes to acquire. The cast, color, and sets are attractive - but, the story is amazingly obvious, and dully performed by the co-starring couple.

Listen up for Garner to tell the General he's "up the well-known creek…without a paddle."

**** Cash McCall (1/20/60) Joseph Pevney ~ James Garner, Natalie Wood, Nina Foch, Dean Jagger

We are about fifteen minutes into this film before we meet the titular Mr. McCall, but by that time we have an idea who he is, based upon "heresay evidence"-the opinions of industry mavens, those who observe him frequently, and the man on the street who only knows what he reads of the elusive millionaire. So, when we first meet Mr. McCall (James Garner), he is a breath of fresh air.

He seems so likable, so transparent. This man who has a reputation for buying companies and tearing them apart for maximum profit (regardless of the consequences to employees or communities, almost for sport, really) is revealed to be a man of principles.

He approaches the owner of Austen Plastics (Dean Jagger) about purchasing his company. Grant Austen has seen the changing business world pass him by and is anxious to retire. A deal is struck, but it is only the beginning of the drama.

One complication is that Austen's daughter, Lory (Natalie Wood), has a history with Cash McCall. And he is motivated to renew their relationship.

Cash McCall lives in a hotel apartment that is 60s chic. One of the joys of this film is seeing its depictions of fashion and the decorative arts.

Another is the list of actors who play major roles in the film. Garner plays a role suited to him and he fully occupies it. Wood rises to the occasion, perhaps due in part to his efforts, and matches his spirit and romantic chemistry. Among the other actors, two deserve to be mentioned: Dean Jagger, who makes Grant Austen totally believable; and Henry Jones, who plays Gil Clark, the skeptical efficiency expert who is given an education in business by Cash. Check out "The Bad Seed" if you want to see Henry Jones in another masterly performance.

This is an enjoyable film. The romance, though a subplot, is between two affable characters. And the business drama has a point of view and actually gives us a rare cinema hero-the capitalist who is depicted as a moral man.

Having not known about this movie previously, I only checked this out from the library because of the stars attached to it: James Garner and Natalie Wood. Watching it with Mom just now, I have a feeling why this is not so well-known: It seems unable to make up its mind about the tone of the characters and plot. Garner is supposed to be somewhat of an unscrupulous bussinessman and Wood is supposed to be the daughter of a once-successful one who half-owns his bussiness and also once was involved with Garner the previous summer. Like I said, the tone shifts one way and another and while there are some amusing scenes and lines, whatever drama ensures becomes convoluted , to me anyway. I'm not sure my mom knew what was going on, either. So on that note, Cash McCall may be worth a look and nothing more...

The characters are interesting and the insight into big business is as current now as then (except for salaries) I would give it two thumbs up. The movie includes bits of spice from jealousy and envy to seduction and romance. It has all the makings of a good family movie as well as strong personalities, with James Garner and Natalie Wood giving the movie much grace and charm. I am very anxious for this movie to come out as an authorized DVD that I can purchase. I have an old copy on VHS, but we have watched it so many times that it is wearing out. This movie would appeal to both men and women as it has such an active business side as well as a romance side, so it would make a great date movie and does not include any violence.

This movie was so well-received that they made a very similar vehicle for James Garner a few years later with The Wheeler Dealers, and both movies were crafted to leverage the popularity of Garner in Maverick episodes where he worked deals or cons or both.

Here he's the king of the Win-Win deal, long before corporate raiding was a hot topic. The writers did a great job of making the deals in this movie both believable and understandable, whether or not they'd actually work in real life.

Garner waltzes through the movie with his constant charm, while wooing businessmen for deals and Natalie Wood for love ... and she just happens to be the daughter of the main target of his deal, and the only reason he wants the deal is to be able to get close to Natalie Wood, who he'd previously fallen in love with.

Both business and romance run into predictable snags, but somehow you know Cash will work them out. :-)

We laughed a lot and could have started it right back over again immediately.

James Garner as a high-flying businessman. Natalie Wood as the daughter of Dean Jagger, who built a plastics company.

Wood looks like she isn't old enough to vote yet has a hideous harido that makes her look like she's 38. Garner doesn't have enough edge to be convincing as a tycoon. Jagger character comes across as a naive doofus.

I didn't care about their romance. It all seemed so forced. Very little chemistry. And that flashback scene after they fly to Aurora Valley, talk about clumsy writing.

On the other hand, Natalie wood in a wet dress by the fireplace? Va-Va-Voom.

If there was supposed to be comedy in here somewhere I didn't see any.

I think it's possible they shot a warmed-over script from 1940. A bad one.