What's remarkable about these two romantic comedies filmed back to back in 1947 and 1948......in both of them, Cary Grant is the objectified sexual prize, and he's furiously pursued by women obsessed with him.
Grant was well aware of his status as the ultimate dashing suave leading man. It fact it amused him greatly and he never missed an opportunity to spoof his own image.
Watching these films some 70 years later, we're willing to overlook the usual prehistoric depictions of male-female relationships..........especially in these two lighter than air comedies, brimming with what we now think of as wildly inappropriate behavior.....
The Bachelor And The Bobby-Soxer (1947) features Grant as a playboy painter (why a painter we have no idea, since you never see him get within a mile of a brush and easel). A mature-beyond-her-years teen girl (a perfectly adorable Shirley Temple) falls hopelessly in love with him and like any female predator on the hunt, she will not be denied her quarry.
Sidney Sheldon's very funny script, stacked to the ceiling with snappy one liners, moves mountains to discourage anyone thinking that this movie's some kind of Jurassic-era "Lolita".....which in 1947, would almost certainly spell ruin and possible jail time for everyone involved in the movie....
We're taking about a way, way more innocent time here......where nobody even knew how to spell pedophilia....
Grant's forced to squire Temple around on dates or face criminal prosecution....(don't even ask us to explain how that comes about , it would take another 20 paragraphs....) Perplexed, confounded and bemused by Temple's delirious infatuation with him, Grant tries to steer her back in the direction of her far more legally acceptable teen boyfriend, while at the same time romancing Temple's older sister (Myrna Loy).
The main joy of this movie comes from savoring Grant's precision, deadpan comic timing at every predicament the plot throws at him. You have to appreciate and love his skill at playing a most reluctant matinee idol, who's not above using his own chiseled good looks when he himself goes on the prowl for a partner.
Terrific classic movie fun, if you're willing to forgive the now ancient cultural attitudes............4 stars (****)
Speaking of sexual prowling, a year later in 1948 we come to Every Girl Should Be Married. Grant, now playing a somewhat more staid character, a pediatrician, finds himself relentlessly stalked by a marriage-minded cutie (Betsy Drake) who hones in on him like a heat-seeking missile.
There's a measure of irony behind the scenes here......Grant was actually as besotted with Betsy Drake as the movie makes her out to be with him and they were married a year later.
But once again, our hero smoothly navigates his way through all of Drake's various machinations.......(which, if this movie had been done as a thriller, would've equaled Glenn Close's boiled-bunny madness in "Fatal Attraction")
Betsy Drake lands very high on the cuteness scale, so her iron willed determination to snag a husband receives a typically candy coated Hollywood veneer......and this kind of aggressive open season on rom com bachelors continued all through the next three decades.
We should warn you though, that in this movie, you won't hear anywhere near the kind of snap, crackle and pop dialogue that peppers "The Bachelor And The Bobby Soxer". But if you find Cary Grant watchable in just about anything (as we do), then "Every Girl" remains a pleasant, mild diversion.
......and may even make you wistfully sigh for those long atao yesteryears when we had iconic movie stars like Cary Grant......3 stars (***)
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