The Grass is Greener (1960)

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104 min – view video trailer

Director: Stanley Donen
Starring: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance

IMDB 6.6 / Amazon 3.8 / Tomatometer 100%

Oscars: n/a

Victor and Hillary are down on their luck to the point that they allow tourists to take guided tours of their castle. But Charles Delacro, a millionaire oil tycoon, visits, and takes a liking to more than the house. Soon, Hattie Durant gets involved and they have a good old fashioned love triangle. IMDB 6.6 from over 2,336 users

Cary Grant is the befuddled English earl casually puttering around his tourist attraction of a grand old estate in casual dress while a bull of an American millionaire (Robert Mitchum) crashes into his life and seduces Grant’s sophisticated lady (Deborah Kerr). It’s pure fantasy, of course, with its cool, cultured lovers swapping witty banter with the same calm they swap gunshots in an old-fashioned duel. Have adultery and jealousy ever been so civilized? Stanley Donen never shakes this very British drawing-room comedy of manners free of its talky, stagebound source or its deliberate snail’s pace, but he does manages to bring a lightness that softens the wit with an American lilt. Ultimately, though, it’s all about a crack cast in fine form: Mitchum’s sleepy-eyed insolence, Kerr’s easy elegance, Jean Simmons’s flighty outrageousness, and especially the charm and measured grace that is Cary Grant. Amazon 3.8 stars from over 48 users

A rousing chorus of Noël Coward’s “Stately Homes of England” is heard as the opening titles of The Grass Is Greener fade into several stock shots of those stately homes. One of these mansions is owned by British earl Victor Rhyall (Cary Grant), who opens his home to American tourists in order to make ends meet. One such tourist is wealthy Texan Charles Delacro (Robert Mitchum), who sets his sights upon Victor’s lovely wife, Hilary (Deborah Kerr). In his efforts to win back his wife, Victor presses his former girlfriend Hattie Durant (Jean Simmons) into service.  Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 100% Audience 64%

MRQE has links to 11 reviews

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBAmg47F_dw]

Indiscreet (1958)

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100 min – view video clip

Director: Stanley Donen
Starring: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman

Genres: Comedy, Romance

IMDB 6.8 / Amazon 3.9 / Tomatometer 100%

Oscars: n/a

Anna Kalman is an accomplished actress who has given up hope of finding the man of her dreams. She is in the middle of taking off her face cream, while talking about this subject with her sister, when in walks Philip Adams. She loses her concentration for a moment as she realizes that this is the charming, smart, and handsome man she has been waiting for. They begin a love-at-first-sight relationship, but she finds out that he has been keeping a secret from her. When she learns of his lie, she becomes furious and works out a plan for revenge. IMDB 6.8 from over 4,075 users

Romance is in the air when a dashing diplomat (Cary Grant) is introduced to a beautiful and famous actress (Ingrid Bergman). The fact that he’s married doesn’t stop the love-struck pair from falling into a passionate affair. But it turns out that the actress isn’t the only one with a talent for role-playing — her married lover is actually a single playboy with no intentions of settling down. When his secret is revealed she decides to give her Romeo a taste of his own medicine and discovers it’s just what the love doctor ordered. Amazon 3.9 stars from over 69 users

Adapted by Norman Krasna from his play Kind Sir, Indiscreet stars Ingrid Bergman as a wealthy actress and Cary Grant as an international financial wizard. While Grant is visiting London, Bergman’s sister Phyllis Calvert and brother-in-law Cecil Parker introduce Grant to Bergman. Because he feels he has no time for marriage, Grant pretends to be married to avoid romantic tangles. Bergman, however, finds the prospect of an affair with a married man to be quite exhilarating. When she discovers the truth, Bergman gets even with the now-smitten Grant by faking a romance with an ex-boy friend–ordering luckless chauffeur David Kossoff to pose as her beau. Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 100% Audience 70%

MRQE has links to 16 reviews

Funny Face (1957)

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103 min – view video trailer

Director: Stanley Donen
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson

Genres: Comedy, Musical, Romance

IMDB 7.0 / Amazon 4.3 / Tomatometer 84%

Oscars: nominated for 4, Won 0

Ranked #184 Greatest Movies Through 1960

An impromptu fashion shoot at a book store brings about a new fashion model discovery in the shop clerk. IMDB 7.0 rating from over 12,970 users

This filmed version of the 1927 George Gershwin Broadway musical Funny Face utilizes the play’s original star, Fred Astaire, and several of the original tunes, then goes merrily off on its own. Astaire is cast as as fashion photographer Dick Avery who is sent out by his female boss Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) to find a “new face”. Amazon 4.3 stars from over 223 users

It doesn’t take Dick long to discover Jo (Audrey Hepburn, who does her own singing), an owlish Greenwich Village bookstore clerk. Acting as Pygmalion to Jo’s Galatea, Dick whisks the wide-eyed girl off to Paris and transforms her into the fashion world’s hottest model. Along the way, he falls in love with Jo, and works overtime to wean her away from such phony-baloney intellectuals as Professor Emile Flostre. Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 84% Audience 82%

MRQE 54% from over 53 reviews – Madison Public Library

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6VLdVrVQGQ]