Grant made four wonderful films with Alfred Hitchcock, who knew how to exploit his flawless profile as well as his dark side. Luckily these films and more are still on frequent rotation on TCM. I'm looking forward to seeing him again in such films as Topper, The Philadelphia Story, Suspicion, North By Northwest, Bringing Up Baby, and Arsenic And Old Lace.
Grant wonderfully sums up his experience of Hollywood, his career, "When you're a young man, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. is driving. Wally Beery is the conductor, and Chaplin's got a front row seat. You take your seat, and back behind you is Gary Cooper ... Suddenly a young man named Ty Power gets on. He asks you to move over. You make a picture with Joan Fontaine. You think you do a good job, but she wins the Oscar, and you get nothing. And pretty soon more and more people get on, it's getting very crowded, and then you decide to get off. When you get off the trolley, you notice that it's been doing nothing but going around in circles." He may have felt at times he was going in circles, making the same movies, never getting recognized, although he was finally awarded an honorary Oscar in 1970. But he had an acting career that was truly unique. As much as other actors like Tyrone Power or Louis Jourdan may have made him feel that his time had passed, there has never been another leading man like Cary Grant.
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