Deborah Kerr can't decide between Cary Grant and Robert Mitchum, and we should all have such problems, while best friend Jean Simmons stands on the sidelines in fabulous 1960 designer outfits and makes catty remarks. What more could we ask from a movie? This elegant drawing room comedy harks back to an earlier era, say the 1930s, when great-looking actors inhabited great-looking interiors and engaged in witty conversation. The screenplay, adapted by Hugh Williams and Margaret Vyner from their West End stage success, is loaded with smart repartee, and Stanley Donen directs this estimable quartet in high style. (There's hardly anybody else in the movie, though Moray Watson does a fine butler turn.) As a married couple of 10 years (they must have wed rather late) with two children, Grant and Kerr have an easy rhythm, and they live in a magnificent Downton-style estate, where part of the upkeep includes hustling tourists through. One such tourist is oil millionaire Mitchum, and when he encounters Kerr, a great flirtation begins. They'd worked together before in "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" and "The Sundowners," and they clearly adored co-starring and remained great friends; when Mitchum gazes with droopy-eyed lust on Kerr, the heat's palpable. There's a delightful score of Noel Coward standards, including several choruses of "The Stately Homes of England," a fun title sequence, and intelligent drawing-room conversation throughout. It wasn't that well reviewed at the time and isn't that well liked here, and personally, I can't imagine why.
Review of The Grass Is Greener
