 | |
List Price: $26.98 | | Label: Paramount Pictures
Salesrank: 12835
Released: November 14, 2006 |
| Our Price: $16.79 |
| Used Price: $15.96 |
|
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: NR
Release Date: 14-NOV-2006
Media Type: DVD
Description of Cary Grant: Screen Legend Collection (Big Brown Eyes / Kiss and Make Up / Thirty Day Princess / Wedding Present / Wings in the Dark):
Cary Grant was on the cusp of stardom when he made the five Paramount films included in this nicely priced Screen Legend Collection. You won't find any classics here, but this entertaining collection makes it clear that Grant's beloved screen persona was developing quickly. Paramount executive B.P. Schulberg had signed 28-year-old Grant to a five-year contract in 1932, and the British-born actor had already appeared in 15 films by the time he appeared in 1934's Thirty Day Princess, the first and arguably best feature in this three-disc set. Cowritten by Preston Sturges and bearing familiar trademarks of Sturges's later screwball classics, the plot finds newspaper publisher Grant falling for a visiting princess (Sylvia Sidney), only to discover that his affections are wrapped up in a breezy case of mistaken identity. Sidney plays two roles with seamless elegance (including impressive split-screen scenes in which she appears with herself), and Grant's suave demeanor is employed to good effect. The little-known gem Kiss and Make-Up was released barely two months later in 1934, with Grant in Paris as a Max Factor-like cosmetics mogul who marries a glamorous former client (Genevieve Tobin) but finds true love with his faithful secretary (Helen Mack) when he comes to his senses. The great character actor Edward Everett Horton costars as Mack's would-be suitor, giving this overlooked comedy an additional boost of amusement.
1935's Wings in the Dark will interest film historians because it was cowritten by pioneering female writer-director Nell Shipman, whose Howard Hawks-ian sense of adventure is on full display in an otherwise creaky melodrama in which inventor and aviator Grant is blinded by a gas explosion, and emerges from self-pity to stage a daring air rescue of his aviatrix wife (Myrna Loy). After being loaned out to RKO for his breakthrough role in 1935's Sylvia Scarlett opposite Katharine Hepburn, Grant returned to Paramount for Big Brown Eyes (released in April 1936), playing a crime-beat reporter paired with Joan Bennett in a lightweight mystery that benefits greatly from director Raoul Walsh's facility with streetwise plots and gritty handling of a baby-killer subplot involving jewel thieves Walter Pigeon and Lloyd Nolan. Wedding Present followed six months later (October '36), reuniting Grant and Bennett as competitive reporters whose relationship is strained when Grant is promoted to editor. Like all five films in this Screen Legend Collection, it's a light and thoroughly enjoyable vehicle for Paramount players including William Demarest, who went on to character-role stardom in the comedies of Preston Sturges. Cary Grant is in fine form here, and his music-hall experience is put to good use in several lightweight musical numbers. All in all, you can't go wrong with a five-film set for this price, especially since Grant was already showing a canny awareness of his own soon-to-be-iconic image. --Jeff Shannon
Cary Grant: Screen Legend Collection (Big Brown Eyes / Kiss and Make Up / Thirty Day Princess / Wedding Present / Wings in the Dark) Reviews:
No Problems 
2009-04-23 - No problems with this order. I received the order within a week of placement and in brand new condition as advertised.
If You Were Born about the same time
2009-02-27 - If you were born about the same time as the movies began to talk, these films will be undiluted treasures. No, they are not the standout films of our time or theirs, no they will enter nobody's list of the top hundred or top thousand of all time. They are what was seen most days, for most years, in the urban neighborhood or small town movie houses, of the 30's and 40's. They are mostly short, inexpensive, quickly made, films made to fill the second billed slot on the standard double feature of those depression and war years. They were intended to have a very short shelf life playing sequentially from the first run down through the flop house theaters mainly used by what today we would call the homeless to sleep with some protection from the elements through the night.They were then stored to deteriorate into a chemical sludge or to disappear as film companies merged, went bankrupt, were destroyed by fire.
Today,who cares what the script is like when one sees Grant and Myrna Loy, for example, refining the screen persona's that served them so well for a generation more of film making.
Of course, I have no idea of what viewers of another time and place, another outlook, experience when they see these films. The other reviews give us some idea. It is most certainly true, as the great art historian Gombrich has written of aesthetic objects, nobody ever sees them in the same way as anyone else.
Good quality and excellent service
2008-12-16 - The item came looking like it had never been opened and there was not a mark or dent to be found. I was very impressed.
Mixed bag of mainly pleasant Paramount programmers 
2008-04-25 - This cheap DVD collection contains 5 Paramount films from the mid thirties before Cary Grant hit the really big time. Only hindsight tells us that he was more than the conventional good looking leading man but each film has some point of interest even if all are fairly routine Paramount programmers of the period.
- "30 Day Princess" is a Ruritanian romance with the charming Sylvia Sidney in a dual role as an out of work actress who is employed to imitate a princess. Grant plays a cynical reporter here and gives a very stiff and humourless performance. This film was a change of pace for Sidney who excelled as a tragedienne and she is delightful but the film is very light weight.
- "Kiss and Make-up" is a tenuous pre-code send up of the beauty industry with Grant as a scientist running a beauty clinic. The gossamer Genevieve Tobin plays his masterpiece creation and the film is an uneasy mixture of satire and music. Grant sings a charming song "Love divided in two" in his shaky tenor and even Edward Everett Horton sings too. To really take off, this film needed Lubitsch directing and a star like Maurice Chevalier but Grant is OK.
- "Wings in the Dark" is a neat drama with Grant playing a blind flier opposite stunt woman Myrna Loy. They make a pleasant team and Loy's customary underplaying works well here making convincing the unlikely romance and melodrama.
- "Big Brown Eyes" is a very amusing film with Grant cast as a detective and Joan Bennett as a manicurist then reporter who together solve a crime. The film is well directed by Raoul Walsh, moves quickly and has some provocative characters, including a shot of two young criminals on a bed together which could imply something the censorship would not allow. Bennett is very entertaining here, chewing gum and tossing off her tart lines like Jean Harlow. She is also very pretty. Walter Pidgeon is suave and menacing as the heavy.
- "Wedding Present" is a poor screwball comedy with mannequin like Bennett and Grant paired again as reckless reporters falling in and out of love. There is far too much talk and the screwball fails, mainly because Bennett is very wooden here, but Grant was by 1936 a much more relaxed comedian and he does his best to hold the film together.
The prints are generally good ("Wings in the Dark" is the worst) but there are no extras included. For Grant fans, the set is compulsory buying.
"Love Divided by Two"
2008-04-18 - DVD set, Universal Studios, and though the prints aren't perfect, they are completely watchable - good audio. And after all - five rarely seen Cary Grant films from 1934-1936 - life is good! My personal favorites are "Big Brown Eyes" and "Kiss and Make Up". In the latter, Cary Grant sings! Several times - same song, but it's good, and it's sweet, and the movie is an over-the-top farce that may have you shaking your head and nodding knowingly. They're all good and I'm pleased to have added them to my classic film library.
