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Plot:
- by Zoë
Shaw
Eckland is forced to
volunteer as a lookout for Japanese forces, and is posted on a South Pacific
island alone. While attempting to rescue another watcher on another island,
he ends up bringing Catherine and seven little girls to his hut. They take
over his home and attempt to improve his habits.
Review:
- by Zoë
Shaw
This film is set in 1941 as the Japanese advance and the
Australians withdraw from the South Pacific islands. Cary Grant plays Walter
Eckland, an
American ex-professor who fled to the islands before the war to escape
civilization. He is
ill-tempered and has a passion for whiskey.
Eckland is persuaded to "volunteer" as a lookout
for Japanese forces, and is posted on a South Pacific island alone. He attempts to rescue
a watcher from another island, but turns up too late and finds him dead. Instead he
discovers Catherine Freneau (Leslie Caron) - the daughter of the French Consul - and seven
little girls who were students at the consulate. He takes them to his hut where they take
over his home and attempt to improve his habits. Walter and Catherine fall in love and are
married by the Military Radio.
This is my favourite Cary Grant film. Cary's part is so
unlike any other that he played- he subdues his usual suave, sleek self in favour of a
bearded, bad-tempered scruff. And yet you can still see his charm shining through. The
film is full of great one liners, and has one of the most original scripts that I know of.
In particular look out for the scenes containing "Is it morning already?" and
"That was no lady, that was my wife!". Cary works exceptionally well with
children and CG and LC are a delightful combination that should NOT be missed!!!
VARIETY
Film Review - November 18, 1964
- by "Whit"
- submitted by Barry Martin
Cary Grant comes up with an about-face change of character in this
World War II comedy which at first may shock many of his more avid
femme followers but provides the basis for some crackling good
humor and a made-to-order plot unquestionably destined for
handsome grosses at box office. As a Japanese plane watcher
on a deserted South Sea isle Grant plays an unshaven bum addicted
to tippling and tattered attire, a long way from the suave figure
he usually projects but affording him opportunity for nutty
characterization. Leslie Caron and Trevor Howard are
valuable assists to plottage which brings in a flock of refugee
kids.
Under Ralph Nelson's shrewd helming
the Peter Stone - Frank Tarloff screenplay takes amusing form as
Grant, who plies the South Seas in his own cruiser at the
beginning of the war, is pressed into service by Australian Navy
Commander Howard to man a strategic watching station. Grant
agrees only when an Aussie gunboat rams his launch, making it
unusable. He is further disheartened when Howard secrets his
liquid store on the island, with Howard revealing the whereabouts
of the supply, bottle by bottle, only when the reluctant and
complaining reports enemy planes, which then must be confirmed by
watchers on other islands.
Into this harassed existence, then,
comes further harassment when Grant crosses 40 miles of open sea
in an eight-foot dinghy to rescue another watcher, but ends up
with Miss Caron and seven young girls, marooned there when a pilot
who was transporting them to safety from New Guinea was ordered to
pick up survivors of a crashed bomber. Situation of Grant
being unwillingly saddled with his femme flock cues the hilarity
as Miss Caron, the height of primness until she becomes inebriated
when she thinks she's dying of snake-bite, takes over.
Some of the gags are a bit shopworn
but generally funny as Grant guns his character to the hilt.
His romance with Miss Caron, too, ending in marriage by a chaplain
over the radio, is a bit too sudden, after a single evening of her
guzzling, but lends itself to the mood and spirit achieved in the
overall unfoldment. Film has a fast climax as Grant puts out
from the island in his repaired launch to draw the fire of a
Japanese gunboat, and an American sub blasts the Nip craft out of
the water.
Grant delivers with his customary aplomb, socking over his
character in resounding fashion, and Miss Caron displays an
aptitude for comedy. Howard, as the Aussie commander, spends
most of his time at the radio talking with Grant, whose
identifying code name is Mother Goose, a clever piece of acting in
which patience to his civilian watcher's complaints is the
dominating element. Jack Good gets a few laughs as his
stuffy aide, and the seven young girls play their parts well.
Digby Wolfe's over-main-titles
warbling of the song, "Pass Me By," cleffed by Coleman
and Carolyn Leigh, is catchy, and technical credits are all on
plus side. Deserving mentions are Charles Lang Jr.'s color
photography, Ted J Kent's editing, Alexander Golitzen-Henry
Bumstead's art direction. Producer Robert Arthur coordinated
his duties with sure showmanship.
NEW YORK TIMES
Film Review - December 11, 1964
- by Bosley Crowther
- submitted by Barry Martin
Santa Claus made his customary early appearance at the Music Hall
yesterday, dropping off a big delivery of holiday fare for stage
and screen. For the stage show, he set down the traditional
"Nativity" pageant and variety revue; for the screen, he
unpacked a cozy comedy, with Cary Grant and Leslie Caron, called
"Father Goose."
Perhaps it would be more explicit
to describe the film as a modern fairy tale or a good-natured gullibles'
fable set in the South Pacific in World War II. For it isn't
the sort of picture that pretends to a precise reality or offers a
hardship story that you are expected to believe for one
moment.
It's a cheerfully fanciful fable
about a boozy beach-comber (Mr. Grant) who finds himself not only
shanghaied to be a wartime coastwatcher for the Australian Navy on
a lonely island in the New Guinea group, but also finds himself
having to share his perilous outpost with a gaggle of stranded
schoolgirls and their prissy custodian, played by Miss Caron.
Exposed to a literal inspection, a
serious situation of this sort might well appear painfully unfunny
and end in distress or tragedy. But literalness was
obviously as distant from the minds of Peter Stone and Frank
Tarloff, who wrote the script, and Ralph Nelson, who directed
their whimsy, as it was from the minds of Richard Rogers and Oscar
Hammerstein 2d when they set a previous romantic fable on a South
Pacific isle.
This is a filmland fabrication in
which the conflict is not so much between the Allied forces in the
South Pacific and the oncoming Japanese as it is between an Aussie
naval commander on one end of a radiophone and the marooned
coastwatcher on the other, trying to find out where the commander
has hidden the booze. And, after the kids and their
custodian are wedged into our hero's cluttered shack, it is a
conflict between Man the Master and the overwhelming forces of the
female sex.
Sure there are flurries of wild
excitement when Japanese aircraft appear overhead, or those
treacherous little gunboats come nosing in from offshore. But
most of the action and the interest are in the acid word battles
between Big Bad Wolf, the Aussie commander, and the code-named
Father Goose or in the battles of wits between the coastwatcher
and Goody Two Shoes, the French school marm, after she arrives.
Obviously, it is a conflict between
the urge to be irresponsible and the will to be efficient and tidy
that we have in this lively comedy. The old Adam, snarly and
rebellious, is called to task by a prim and proper Eve. With
our social expectations, as demonstrated before this in such films
as Charles Laughton's "The Beachcomber" and Humphrey
Bogart's and Katharine Hepburn's "The African Queen," it
shouldn't be hard to anticipate which of the characters wins.
It is not the outcome of the battle
but the way it is played that makes the film, and, on our critical
scoresheet, the points favor Mr. Grant. Miss Caron is cuddly
and amusing when she finally gets pleasantly soused (after
suffering what is feared to be a fatal snakebite and breaks out of
her script-imposed shell.
But it is Mr. Grant's blustering
and bristling in his filthy old clothes and a scraggly beard,
rising in righteous indignation and shooting barbed shafts of
manly with that make for the major personality and most pungent
humor in the film. It is not a very deep character or a very
real one, but it is fun.
Next to his, Trevor Hoard's
performance of the Aussie commander is most provocative of
laughs. And points are scored intermittently by the clutter
of seven little girls.
Nothing of any great significance
is achieved by this intensely colored film - noting except some
harmless entertainment. But that's the order for the
Christmas holidays.
Review:
- Kathy Fox
This is
Grant's next to last film (the 71st), made in 1964, and his only
movie with Leslie Caron. Grant plays Walter Eckland, a
misanthropic unkempt man who has been living on a South Pacific
island for many years. He is approached by Australian navy
commander Frank Houghton who needs Eckland to be a lookout for
advancing Japanese forces in World War II and persuades him to
volunteer. Eckland being very familiar with all the islands
is sent to another island to help another lookout but ends up
finding Catherine Freneau (Caron), daughter of the French Consul
at Rabaul, instead, and seven children entrusted to her care who
have been stranded on the island. They all pile in Eckland's
dingy and return to the island where Walter is stationed.
Walter and Catherine begin to fall in love, as Catherine and the
children begin to change his life; he is the drunken, unshaven
master, hard to get along with, whose call signal over the radio
is "Mother Goose." Caron is the caring,
correcting, organizer, and they are the direct opposite of one
another. Grant and Caron are very attractive together and
this film must have been great fun to make. So precious and
tender is the scene where they are being married but there is no
wedding ring available, so Walter places a band-aide on her third
finger, left hand and kisses the makeshift ring. One of
Cary's many signature traits in his films is kissing the hand of
his beloved. The Japanese finally find them on the island,
but everyone is saved when Eckland leads the Japanese destroyer
out to sea in his newly fixed boat to be torpedoed by the
submarine lying off the reef which has come to their rescue.
It is interesting to note that the same submarine torpedo launch
was used in the movie OPERATION PETTICOAT in 1959, both pictures
made by University-International. When you think about it,
how many times has Grant been shot at during his lifetime and he
always is so heroic about it, calm, cool and collected. This
is a heart-warming story, which started out being produced
entirely by Grant; however his chores eventually were taken over
by Robert Arthur. Grant wanted Audrey Hepburn in the female
role, but she was not available. One review from The New
Yorker stated, "Cary Grant can go on making versions of this
silly, attractive picture for another twenty years at least."
This was a turn about from Grant's usual suave and charming roles,
but all in all, still so obviously very attractive and in total
command of his career. Just the opposite in real life, he is
dating Dyan Canon, will marry her on July 22, 1965, and that
marriage will be short-lived though, giving him at the age of
sixty-two years what he had always longed for, a precious child in
the name of Jennifer.
Review
Click here to read Jenny's Crackpot
Reviews at the Cary Grant Shrine
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