The last night of Cary Grant

Tonight is the last Monday in December, so it's the last night for Star of the Month Cary Grant on TCM. There's one movie that's really worth recommending, except that I haven't seen it in ages and don't remember it quite as well as I remember some other movies that I haven't seen in ages. Don't ask me why some movies resgister better than others; they just do. So I'll just give a one-paragraph synopsis of that movie, Houseboat, which is on at 10:15 PM, and brief mentions of a couple of others.

Cary Grant plays a widower in Houseboat, but a differnet kind of widower: one who hadn't seen his kids in years since he was estranged from his wife. So he's got custody of the kids and tries to be the best father he can, saving money by living on a houseboat on the Potomac River. However, the kids need a mother, and a motherly presence comes in the form of Sophia Loren, who passes herself off as hired help even though she's running away from her conductor father. You can probably guess that the Grant and Loren characters fall in love, and everybody learns something about being a family along the way. I remember being reasonably and inoffensively entertained by the movie, but nothing to make it stand out against the other family comedies of the 50s or 60s (such as the much more memorable Yours, Mine, and Ours). Houseboat is apparently available on DVD from Amazon, but not at the TCM Shop.

The same goes for Father Goose, which kicks off the night at 8:00 PM and which I blogged aboug back in June 2009. Cary Grant plays a drunk vagabond who winds up as a plane-spotter in World War II, and then winds up having to take care of a stranded schoolteacher (Leslie Caron) and her kids. This one is also apparently not available at the TCM Shop, but is worth a watch.

I was going to do a one-paragraph post about Dream Wife, the way I did about Houseboat, only pointing out that it's pretty dire. However, it turned out that I already did a fuller-length post back in the summer of 2011. As always with a movie I strongly dislike, you may still want to watch it to judge for yourself. I'm sure somebody out there likes this movie.