DREAMBOAT is a pleasant and amusing satire on early television, but I can't help but believe that an opportunity for something more was missed by writer/director Claude Binyon, whose writing seems better than his sluggish direction. It also serves as a nice star vehicle for Clifton Webb who, to paraphrase the famous Cary Grant line, may always play the same character but he plays it beautifully.
Old movies really were a staple of many television stations in the old days and this plot isn't all that far-fetched. Other reviewers have described it so I won't repeat their efforts. Hollywood delighted in skewering its new rival, television, just as it had done with radio some twenty years before. DREAMBOAT's parodies of the contemporary commercials of its time (I especially liked the 'penetroleum' effort) as well as the extinct silent films from the twenties hit their marks nicely. Those sorts of things hadn't been done much by 1952 so you might describe DREAMBOAT as being mildly creative. When it wanders from its main plot it's sprightly and very funny, if not particularly deep. The idea that an old actor can claim privacy in an effort to squelch the showing of his old films, however, is quite unrealistic. And DREAMBOAT drags when it turns to its subplot about young lovers Anne Francis and Jeffrey Hunter.
This isn't the fault of the actors, however. Francis is especially appealing in her small role, and Hunter is handsome, which is about all he has a chance to be. The entire cast of DREAMBOAT is exceptionally strong for such a modest comedy and a better script and snappier direction might have gotten something very special out of them. Everyone is in fine form as it is, Webb being his usual acerbic self, Ginger Rogers appropriately over-the-top as the aging silent film star (she looked rather like the young Gloria Swanson in her dark wigs, and SUNSET BOULEVARD hadn't been that long ago), the fine comical actor Fred Clarke is his usual efficient self, and Elsa Lanchester as the sex-starved college dean steals every scene that she's in. DREAMBOAT isn't a cinematic masterpiece, but it provides a very pleasant 83 minutes for its audience.
Old movies really were a staple of many television stations in the old days and this plot isn't all that far-fetched. Other reviewers have described it so I won't repeat their efforts. Hollywood delighted in skewering its new rival, television, just as it had done with radio some twenty years before. DREAMBOAT's parodies of the contemporary commercials of its time (I especially liked the 'penetroleum' effort) as well as the extinct silent films from the twenties hit their marks nicely. Those sorts of things hadn't been done much by 1952 so you might describe DREAMBOAT as being mildly creative. When it wanders from its main plot it's sprightly and very funny, if not particularly deep. The idea that an old actor can claim privacy in an effort to squelch the showing of his old films, however, is quite unrealistic. And DREAMBOAT drags when it turns to its subplot about young lovers Anne Francis and Jeffrey Hunter.
This isn't the fault of the actors, however. Francis is especially appealing in her small role, and Hunter is handsome, which is about all he has a chance to be. The entire cast of DREAMBOAT is exceptionally strong for such a modest comedy and a better script and snappier direction might have gotten something very special out of them. Everyone is in fine form as it is, Webb being his usual acerbic self, Ginger Rogers appropriately over-the-top as the aging silent film star (she looked rather like the young Gloria Swanson in her dark wigs, and SUNSET BOULEVARD hadn't been that long ago), the fine comical actor Fred Clarke is his usual efficient self, and Elsa Lanchester as the sex-starved college dean steals every scene that she's in. DREAMBOAT isn't a cinematic masterpiece, but it provides a very pleasant 83 minutes for its audience.