Audrey Hepburn: Do you know what's wrong with you?
Cary Grant: No, what?
Audrey Hepburn: Nothing!
--From Charade, 1963
From the late 1930s to the mid-1960s, Cary Grant had the face that was the very definition of Movie Star Handsome; his voice the definition of suave sophistication.
Two new DVD releases, one a box set (whose titles are also available individually) show the man in his prime, and at the end of his career, which concluded at in 1966 at age 62, when he was afraid he was past his prime as a matinee star. (These days of course, Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood and Sean Connery continue to be superstars in their sixties and seventies.)
Warner Brothers' recent box set, The Cary Grant Signature Collection, contains several of Grant's films from World War II and the immediate post-war years. (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, Destination Tokyo, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, My Favorite Wife, and Night and Day are included in the set.) These aren't necessarily Grant's best films, but he brings something memorable to each of them.
1943's Destination Tokyo places Grant in the role of a US submarine commander whose boat is on a secret mission (guess where). In a way, the film is a bookend to Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, since one concerns Jimmy Doolittle's air raid, and the other concerns the preparation of it.
As a film, Destination Tokyo creaks--it really shows its age. The subplot has the same cast of seemingly every war film prior to Full Metal Jacket: the virgin, the grizzled veteran, the musician and the older wizened veteran for comic relief (played memorably here by Alan Hale, whose son would command his own memorable nautical journey, as captain of the SS Minnow in TV's Gilligan's Island.)
The All-American Englishman
Sean Connery has often been called Cary Grant's successor. Whenever he appears in an American production, modern Hollywood seems obliged to build some sort of back story to tell us what the heck he's doing with that accent playing a US military officer (The Presidio), the last survivor of Alcatraz (The Rock), or as a Chicago cop (The Untouchables). That last one must have seemed easy to the producers: we'll explain his Scottish burr by making him an Irish immigrant! But Connery both won the Oscar for his performance and topped a recent poll for having the worst accent in his performance, which seems oddly fair in a way.
Article comments
1 - James M. Panetta
I just finished reading two books.
The Latest by Marc Eliot.
Then I picked up the one called
"Evenings with Cary Grant" By Nancy Nelson. from the public library.
I found the one from Marc Eliot tended to concentrate on the inuendoes about Cary Grant. His Homosexuality, Howard Hughes etc. As if it was an expose about all the negative things about Cary Grant.
I found the Nancy Nelson one done back in 1992 to be a cleaner more enjoyable biography of him. It had more photographs of him also.
While I was reading Nancy's book. The difference was telling on Marc Eliot's book. I suspect it would have gotten a thumbs down by Mr. Grant himself.
The man was very enjoyable to watch and thats what made him a excellent actor or one of the things anyway. I know when I was growing up he was a role model for me. As what a man does and how they approach situations.