I know the plot sounds awful -- Cary Grant marooned on an island with Leslie Caron and half a dozen young girls -- but I found this pretty consistently funny. Of course you can predict just about everything that happens but it's so well written and the cast good enough that it should entertain most people.
Grant is a grizzled, irritable, hard-drinking loner in New Guinea at the start of World War II and is finessed by the local Navy Commander, Trevor Howard, into manning a coast watcher station on an isolated island. Howard and his crew have buried bottles of whiskey around the thatch-roofed hut and arranged for the location of one bottle to be revealed with each confirmed sighting of Japanese aircraft or ships.
Before long, circumstances force Grant to accommodate Caron and her diverse little charges -- two French, one Australian, and the rest British. There follow innumerable conflicts, small and large, as the unshaven, slovenly Grant is forced to sleep on his boat and does his best to avoid the kids, grumbling at their disruption of his unique life style and Weltanschaung.
Largely because of Grant's superb comic timing and his expressive features and body language, the encounters are far more often funny than silly. Nor are they over-written. Example: While the others are out somewhere, Grant sneaks back into the hut to search for the whiskey that Caron has hidden from him -- again. One child has been left behind and she stares at him silently as he rummages through the junk. Balked, frustrated, he glances sideways at her, there is a lengthy pause, then he speaks: "Beat it."
Example two: Believing Caron to have been fatally bitten by a venomous snake, Grant cuts the wound and sucks on it, then gets her drunk to make her death easier. Caron: "What did it taste like -- my blood." Grant: "How would I know? I'm not a vampire." Caron: "Was it salty?" Grant is nonplussed: "Well, a LITTLE salty." Caron: "OHH, was it TOO salty?" Grant (at his wit's end): "No -- it was JUST RIGHT." Caron sobs a little and says: "No, I know it was too salty." On the screen, with Cary Grant at his best and Caron doing a fine job, it's not nearly as ridiculous as it sounds. Grant delivers exactly the right measure of chagrin.
It's not an important film, not enough to go on about, but it's largely effective and should keep the kids laughing as well as the adults. The alcohol abuse we see is genteel. Grant swigs it straight out of the bottle but it's good Black & White scotch and he's never drunk. He is naturally reformed at the end. He even drinks a non-alcoholic beverage at dinner. "Coconut milk. Mmmm. Young coconuts must love it."
Grant is a grizzled, irritable, hard-drinking loner in New Guinea at the start of World War II and is finessed by the local Navy Commander, Trevor Howard, into manning a coast watcher station on an isolated island. Howard and his crew have buried bottles of whiskey around the thatch-roofed hut and arranged for the location of one bottle to be revealed with each confirmed sighting of Japanese aircraft or ships.
Before long, circumstances force Grant to accommodate Caron and her diverse little charges -- two French, one Australian, and the rest British. There follow innumerable conflicts, small and large, as the unshaven, slovenly Grant is forced to sleep on his boat and does his best to avoid the kids, grumbling at their disruption of his unique life style and Weltanschaung.
Largely because of Grant's superb comic timing and his expressive features and body language, the encounters are far more often funny than silly. Nor are they over-written. Example: While the others are out somewhere, Grant sneaks back into the hut to search for the whiskey that Caron has hidden from him -- again. One child has been left behind and she stares at him silently as he rummages through the junk. Balked, frustrated, he glances sideways at her, there is a lengthy pause, then he speaks: "Beat it."
Example two: Believing Caron to have been fatally bitten by a venomous snake, Grant cuts the wound and sucks on it, then gets her drunk to make her death easier. Caron: "What did it taste like -- my blood." Grant: "How would I know? I'm not a vampire." Caron: "Was it salty?" Grant is nonplussed: "Well, a LITTLE salty." Caron: "OHH, was it TOO salty?" Grant (at his wit's end): "No -- it was JUST RIGHT." Caron sobs a little and says: "No, I know it was too salty." On the screen, with Cary Grant at his best and Caron doing a fine job, it's not nearly as ridiculous as it sounds. Grant delivers exactly the right measure of chagrin.
It's not an important film, not enough to go on about, but it's largely effective and should keep the kids laughing as well as the adults. The alcohol abuse we see is genteel. Grant swigs it straight out of the bottle but it's good Black & White scotch and he's never drunk. He is naturally reformed at the end. He even drinks a non-alcoholic beverage at dinner. "Coconut milk. Mmmm. Young coconuts must love it."