Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

If it ain't Wham - you ain't eating ham. Gussie
 
This is a movie that was recommended to me by berniez40 who mentioned it in a comment on another movie review. He likes classic films like I do and this one has three big stars of the classical era in it, Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, and Melvyn Douglas in a comedy showing why a person better be careful what he wishes for.

This was a production of David O Selznick for RKO with Frank Capra directing and James Wong Howe shooting the pictures. With that team behind the cameras and the major stars in front of it, it had to be good.

Mr Blandings (Cary Grant - Notorious) is a Manhattan ad executive with a wife (Myrna Loy) who stays home and two daughters (Sharyn Moffett and Connie Marshall) and maid Gussie (Louise Beavers).  His best friend and lawyer Bill Cole (Melvyn Douglas - Ninotchka) serves as the narrator and a welcome foil for Grant as he gets more and more frustrated with apartment living and pursues his dream of owning a home in the country.

I think in this day and age it is less likely for the movie to provoke laughs from the story angle of a guy going broke trying to realize his dream since Blandings' standard of living, even in the NYC apartment is quite a bit above average, with his wife not having to work outside and with a full time maid.  Still, the three big stars do a memorable job with the comic situations including buying a run down farm house; learning it is unfixable; demolishing it; and planning and building their dream house that rapidly becomes a money pit with changes and costs spiraling out of control.  Melvyn Douglas, of course, serves as the "voice of doom" with a negative pronouncement for every development.

The movie has several scenes that provoke laughter; the opening showing crowded Manhattan and the apartment the Blandings' have spent fifteen years in; Grant's refusal to spend $7,000 to remodel the apartment; the hunt for the country property in Connecticut with the slick local who sells them the dilapidated farm house with defective title and less land than advertised; the parade of engineers who inspect the property AFTER Blandings buys it, rather than before; the drawing up of the specs that run up the price with each change Mr and Mrs Blandings suggests; the Yankee workmen with their dry personalities; and several more.  The price inflates by degrees from $7,000 to $38,000 in 1948 dollars and the house is truly impressive - from the outside.

A couple of recurring themes include Grant's suspicion of his wife and Douglas who were an item during college and Grant's futile search for a new advertising slogan for Wham! a commercial ham represented by his ad agency.  These are played out with fairly good results by Grant and company.  Don't forget to watch for the closet - that is also a funny recurring theme.

Probably the best aspect of Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House is the comic timing of the three stars with their repartee of the sort that is not seen in today's comedies.  Grant was an accomplished comedian and an actor that could play anything well and Myrna Loy was always cast as a knowing lady with sharp insight while Melvyn Douglas was also an accomplished star with good comic instincts, playing opposite all the leading ladies, including Garbo. The supporting cast was good, particularly the Yankee workmen who work building the dream house.

The DVD is from Warner Bros.  The 94 minute black and white movie is presented in full screen format which was how it appeared in theaters.  There are several extras including a pair of radio enactments of the story by Cary Grant and about ten or a dozen of Cary Grant's film trailers showing what an accomplished star he was.  

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV