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DVD Monkey Business
Cary Grant plays an absent-minded scientist working on a youth serum with little success. One afternoon, one of his test monkeys gets loose and works up a formula of its own, which then gets dropped into their water cooler. Shortly, Grant is tooling around in a sports car with his boss's voluptuous secretary (Marilyn Monroe). When his wife (Ginger Rogers) investigates, she too gets a dose and drags Grant off for a second honeymoon of all-night dancing. Meanwhile, Grant's elderly boss (Charles Coburn) is eager to get his hands on the formula--only Grant's formula isn't having the proper effect. Monkey Business is probably most familiar to Marilyn Monroe cultists, but it's Grant and Rogers who have the central roles and make the most of them. Rogers's adolescent emotional meltdown at a hotel and Grant leading a gaggle of boys on a scalping raid are only two of the movie's many richly funny set pieces, all directed by the nimble hand of Howard Hawks (His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby, Ball of Fire, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes). One of the last of the classic screwball comedies. --Bret Fetzer
Monkey Business (1958) not to be confused with the 1935 Marx Brothers movie with the same title is a very cute comedy and it stars Cary Grant as a scientist working on a formula that will delay the aging process but hasn't been having sucess but unknown to him one of his test monkeys mixes things in the formular and a janitor accidently puts it in the water cooler and when people start drinking the water they begin to act much younger then they are. This movie is pretty funny and also stars Ginger Rogers as Cary's wife and Marilyn Monroe plays a secretary. This is one of my favorite Cary Grant movies and I highly recommend this DVD!
Adorable!
Monkey Business is one of the cutest movies I have ever seen and it's just so funny to see Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers take the youth serum and act like children and they were great and also the monkey were absolutely adorable!
This movie is recommended highly!
"Anyone can type."
Please don't think that MONKEY BUSINESS is a true Marilyn Monroe vehicle, no matter what the box suggests. Her total time in this feature-length movie is on the order of 15-20 minutes, but MM lights up the screen as a dim secretary who is careful to get to work by nine because her boss has asked her to improve her punctuation. (!) Classic line: after boss (played by Charles Coburn) sends Marilyn off in search of someone to type a letter, he steals a look at her "caboose" and remarks, "Anyone can type."
This is not to imply that the rest of the production lacked brilliance. MONKEY BUSINESS is a true screwball comedy of the pre-WWII type that accelerates and spins out of control in ways that the audience cannot anticipate, but will surely enjoy. Released in 1952 just before Monroe became a full-blown star and TV hijacked the mass audience, the film brims with talent and zesty roles. MONKEY BUSINESS reunites Howard Hawks as director and Cary Grant as male lead for the first time since 1938's delightful BRINGING UP BABY.
Cary plays a very middle-aged absent-minded professor who is really a bit of a stick--until he's accidentally dosed with a new Ponce de Leon rejuvenation serum and all youth breaks out. Pretty soon he's got his hair in a buzz cut and driving a new roadster so recklessly he scares even the pretty (and pretty daring) secretary, the aforementioned by Marilyn Monroe. Things get even wackier when wife Edwina (Ginger Rogers) accidentally ingests some of the serum, too.
Now, this excellent film has plenty of performances alongside Marilyn's: manic Cary, flabbergasted Ginger Rogers, the everlovin' monotone of Hugh Marlowe (he of a jillion WWII air-ace movies and the playwright in ALL ABOUT EVE) and as a special treat, George ("Foghorn") Winslow, the seven-year-old Baby Boomer who blatts out "What'sa matter? Don'cha like children?" just before he ties Marlowe to a tree!
Part of the joy of this movie is watching Grant and Rogers give some of their most uninhibited performances ever as the middle-aged couple who revert to youth--and even before. The timing, direction, and dialog are all impeccable, and of course we have MM into the bargain.
Worth keeping a weather eye out for as well are numerous other Fox black-and-white comedies from the late forties/early fifties, not least among them EVERYBODY DOES IT (1947), in which Celeste Holm plays a mediocre talent who's convinced she could have hit the big time with the right support; and A LETTER TO THREE WIVES (1948), with an all-star cast, including Ann Sothern, Jeanne Crain and Linda Darnell as three of postwar suburbia's most "desperate housewives."
This laugh-a-minute farce takes place in Occupied Germany, in the years following World War II. French officer Henri Rochard (Cary Grant) gets assigned to pair up with Lt. Catherine Gates (Ann Sheridan) to track down black marketers; they're already well acquainted and can't stand each other's presence. Eventually their antagonism turns to love, however, and they marry. Problem number two: navigating through U.S. Army red tape, which necessitates that Rochard be classified as a war bride and cross-dress to gain entry into the States. Grant makes an even less convincing woman than he does a Frenchman. The alternate title of this movie was You Can't Sleep Here, a phrase Grant hears over and over as he sleeps in all manner of horribly awkward and uncomfortable circumstances. Sheridan... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cary Grant - Ann Sheridan Director(s): Howard Hawks DVD Release Date: Released the 06 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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After winning consecutive best director Oscars (for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve), Joseph Mankiewicz turned his attention to this extremely curious social comedy. Cary Grant plays a famous, idealistic gynecologist whose mysterious past is questioned by a vindictive colleague (Hume Cronyn). Meanwhile, the doctor falls for a pregnant patient (Jeanne Crain), whose unmarried status is daring for a movie of 1951 vintage. The title is an all-too-apt description of Mankiewicz's chatty style, but it also carries sinister echoes of the McCarthy era--specifically, an attempted right-wing purge of the Director's Guild, I which Mankiewicz was the main target. This subtext lends interest beyond the movie's rather tame romance. The Grant character, named Doctor Praetorius (no... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cary Grant - Jeanne Crain Director(s): Joseph L. Mankiewicz DVD Release Date: Released the 06 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The Front Page, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's classic 1928 newspaper play, has had three official film versions and contributed structural DNA to half the movies ever made about professional camaraderie and fierce love-hate friendships. Lewis Milestone's 1931 movie is well respected (Billy Wilder's 1974 version isn't), but this is one case where the remake towers brilliantined head and blocked shoulders above the original.
Howard Hawks had the inspired notion of making Hildy Johnson--the ace newsman whom demonic editor Walter Burns is trying to keep from quitting and getting married--a she instead of a he. What's more, she's not only Walter's star reporter but also his ex-wife. When Hildy (Rosalind Russell) comes to tell Walter (Cary Grant) she's leaving the newspaper... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cary Grant - Rosalind Russell Director(s): Howard Hawks DVD Release Date: Released the 01 October 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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A classic screwball comedy with a supernatural twist, Topper stars the incomparable Cary Grant and sparkling Constance Bennett as George and Marion Kirby, a fun-loving couple who cap an evening of jazz and champagne by running their car into a tree. They return as ghosts with a mandate to liven up the straight-laced hen-pecked life of bank president Cosmo Topper (Roland Young), who's hungry for just such a shake-up. Before long he's boozing, dancing, and getting into fights, all of which gives him a rakish reputation--much to the consternation of his wife (Billie Burke, best known as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz). The sequel replaces Grant and Bennett with Joan Blondell, who can't quite compare, but she's charming in her own way. Topper Returns... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Constance Bennett - Cary Grant - Roland Young Director(s): Norman Z. McLeod DVD Release Date: Released the 17 June 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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One of the top five screwball comedies of the '30s, this helped to cement a genre that waxed golden until the end of WWII. Director Leo McCarey won an Oscar for Best Director for this 1937 romantic comedy--one of the most successful films of his career. Irene Dunne and Cary Grant are a squabbling couple who separate because of supposed infidelities on both sides. They part but cannot really keep away from each other. Grant finds himself hooked up with a socialite, Dunne becomes engaged to a millionaire hick played by the hapless Ralph Bellamy (as if he ever stood a chance as the "other" man!). When not dating others or baiting one another in a verbal war, Grant and Dunne wage a custody battle over their pathetic pooch. Gags, double entendre, witty remarks, snide comments, and fast-paced... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Irene Dunne - Cary Grant Director(s): Leo McCarey DVD Release Date: Released the 11 March 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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