1h 37min | Comedy | 29 August 1952
Director: Howard Hawks
Stars: Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Marlowe.
MM is not onscreen a lot, but enough to declare that MM's persona is complete here. Her posture, lip movements, hip movements, logic and speech, both the breathlessness and the vocabulary errors. She's CC's secretary, but she's not allowed to type a letter ("anyone can type"), and arrives to work early because her punctuation has been criticized. She's a walking man-trap, flirting with CG. Her posture, lip movements, hip movements, logic and speech, both the breathlessness and the vocabulary errors. Next MM film: Niagara ('53).
The film is a cute screwball comedy, with adults acting like children after they've consumed the chimp's version of the "formula" added to a water cooler.
I can't say that CG is executing his own persona here. He's the distracted scientist, ala Bringing Up Baby (1938), also Grant and Hawks. The missing ingredients: suave charm and bemusement. Instead he's unaware of his looks (behind very thick glasses) and makes no attempt to build relationships with anyone other than his wife, and too uncaring about "life" to be amused.
CC is an asset here, as usual.
GR act like a girl again (The Major and the Minor (1942)), and does it well, as does CG.
Fox, dir. Hawks; 7-
