When you're sitting (or, in Judy's case, lying in bed) in a chemo room for ten or so hours, and you have nothing to watch except a little hospital TV set, it's nice that the hospital gets Turner Classic Movies.Yesterday, Judy and I watched Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, a movie I've heard of for most of my life but which I'd never actually seen. Cary Grant is Mr. Blandings, who decided to build a house in Connecticut and escape his crowded apartment in NYC. Everything that can possibly go wrong, does. Hilarity ensues. If you've ever built a house (as I have), you'll get a lot of rueful laughs.
And what a cast. You can't beat Grant and Loy at this kind of low-key comedy. Loy is elegant and witty. Grant is elegant and sometimes frantic. Melvyn Douglas is fine, too, and it was fun to see Lex Barker in a minor speaking role before he went on to become Tarzan.
Judy and I smiled all the way through this one. It was just what we needed in the middle of a very long day.
6 comments:
One of my favorite movies. Glad you liked it too. I actually have a copy of the book too.
We love this movie, too, especially since the first time we saw it, we'd just come off a long stretch of home renovations.
I suspect that many city dwellers at the time understood the Blandings' problems with living in a small apartment. Kinda puts the whole "move to the suburbs" movement into a better perspective.
Someone told me that a recent Ice Cube movie was a remake of this one. I think I'll skip it, but it might be interesting to make a comparison. I just can't see Ice Cube as Cary Grant, though.
"Ice Cube" also gets exasperated well, but not quite as well as Grant.
I love this movie. I've seen it innumerable times. I've recommended it to my grown children many times, but I think they figure anything I might like is pretty dated. This movie stands up well with the passage of time.
Best to both of you in trying times.
I like some of the dated things a lot. Like Cary Grant's salary. $15K back in 1948 or so would have seemed like a fortune to anybody living in my hometown, but maybe in NYC it wasn't so grand. Thanks for the good wishes.
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