Room for One More (1952)
Cary Grant is in his everyman, humorous, relaxed form here, and is great. His counterpart, Betsy Drake (playing his wife) is no Irene Dunne, and as "good" as she is (in every sense of the word), she's just filler. And so that leaves the children, who all play important roles if bit parts overall, filling out the family.
If you can't tell, this is a story about adoption and foster care. It's about having a family of three and finding room for one (or two) more, no matter what the troubled past and difficulties. Everyone's heart is in the right place, and it almost reads like a wonderful public service announcement.
And that's a lot of the trouble here. There is little realism to the troubles the family might face (or even the depths of love they will find, frankly). It's all a bit superficial and glib, and you want to overlook this to give credit to the good intentions, but it's not a way to make a great movie. Add the ongoing theme of the husband feeling neglected (sexually) by his wife, which loses it's humor quickly, and you see a very 1950s movie in scope and depth.
On the other hand, the acting and production are really good overall, and if you just skip the writing on almost every level you can enjoy a lot of what is happening here. It happens to be very well filmed (by the cinematographer favored by Hitchcock in these years, Robert Burks) and the score is a Max Steiner staple (which means very good).
So I laughed, I cried, and I liked Cary Grant a lot (and he has a huge number of great little quips, so many that I wonder if he added many of them). That's not so bad for this kind of movie.
Cary Grant is in his everyman, humorous, relaxed form here, and is great. His counterpart, Betsy Drake (playing his wife) is no Irene Dunne, and as "good" as she is (in every sense of the word), she's just filler. And so that leaves the children, who all play important roles if bit parts overall, filling out the family.
If you can't tell, this is a story about adoption and foster care. It's about having a family of three and finding room for one (or two) more, no matter what the troubled past and difficulties. Everyone's heart is in the right place, and it almost reads like a wonderful public service announcement.
And that's a lot of the trouble here. There is little realism to the troubles the family might face (or even the depths of love they will find, frankly). It's all a bit superficial and glib, and you want to overlook this to give credit to the good intentions, but it's not a way to make a great movie. Add the ongoing theme of the husband feeling neglected (sexually) by his wife, which loses it's humor quickly, and you see a very 1950s movie in scope and depth.
On the other hand, the acting and production are really good overall, and if you just skip the writing on almost every level you can enjoy a lot of what is happening here. It happens to be very well filmed (by the cinematographer favored by Hitchcock in these years, Robert Burks) and the score is a Max Steiner staple (which means very good).
So I laughed, I cried, and I liked Cary Grant a lot (and he has a huge number of great little quips, so many that I wonder if he added many of them). That's not so bad for this kind of movie.