23 September 2009

1932 - Hot Saturday

Jumping ahead to 1932 because I needed a little Cary Grant in my life!!



Title: Hot Saturday
Release Date: 28 October 1932
Director: William A. Seiter
Cast: Cary Grant, Nancy Carroll, Randolph Scott, Edward Woods, Lillian Bond, William Collier Sr., Jane Darwell, Grady Sutton, Rose Coghlan
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023028/
My Rating:  (6/10) ★★★★★★✩✩✩✩

Loving Cary Grant the way I do, it's always a pleasure to discover a forgotten, pre-code movie where Grant does what made him famous. Here, a young and pre-tan Cary Grant plays Romer Sheffield--a name that by no coincidence evokes a certain, young star crossed lover. But Grant made a career out of never being star crossed--certainly not! No, Cary Grant always gets the girl. Even if the girl happens to be the kind of girl everyone gossips about behind her back--a loose, immoral girl they say. But Ruth, played by the porcelain faced Nancy Carroll (whose career it seems was on the downward spiral forcing her to take second billing to newcomer Grant), is not really that kind of girl. She's just misunderstood. So what if she wakes up nude in the arms of her childhood friend turned fiance! In this small town, the gossip mill works overtime and when people spot her being driven home late at night by Romer's driver they begin talking. Naturally, within a couple of days Ruth's engagement to the simple and affable Bill Fadden (Randolph Scott) lies in ruins at her feet. Oh the lives Cary Grant has so dapperly and flirtatiously destroyed! How I wish he'd destroy mine. But I guess that's gross considering.


This film is light and mostly forgettable if not for Cary Grant. As far as I can gather, this is the film where Cary Grant met his long term partner and "roommate" Randolph Scott. That is a great reason to add it to your collection if nothing else! Also there's a hysterical and godawful tagline: ...when her cheating found her out she sought to make marriage cover her sins!

Finally, there's also a lounge performance of a great song "Burning for You" by a singer who i'd LOVE to know. I can't find her name anywhere, and apparently the song even went unpublished. I've captured it on video and will post a youtube clip at some point.



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