The Grass is Greener

Back at the beginning of January when I posted about Robert Mitchum being TCM's Star of the Month for January, I mentioned that one of his movies I hadn't heard of before was The Grass Is Greener. Recently, I finally got around to watching it before it expired from the DVR, and now I can do a post on it.

The opening credits, designed by Maurice Binder, oddly show a bunch of infants, with four names getting roughly equal credit and only one name being listed among co-stars. After the credits, we get a song from Noël Coward about British stately houses and how the aristocrats who lived there can now no longer necessarily afford to do so. Cut to one such manor, where Victor (Cary Grant) and Hilary (Deborah Kerr), the Earl and Countess of Rhyall respectively, live, together with their two children. The couple live in a couple of rooms in one wing of the house that are marked "Private", which is because the rest of the house with all its artwork and other museum-quality furniture is subject to guided tours to help pay for the upkeep of the house. They even have to get rid of the governess, giving those duites to the butler, Sellers (Moray Watson, the one non-star in the credits).

During one of those tours, a man walks into what is essentially Victor and Hilary's living room, claiming that he did not see any "Private" sign because it fell off the door. That man, Charles Delacro (Robert Mitchum) is an American oilman who is in the UK on an extended holiday. Hilary is obviously none too pleased at first about seeing this strange man walk right into her living quarters, but the two strike up a conversation and Charles reveals himself to be extremely charming, as they head out onto the grounds. Eventually, however, Victor comes back into the living room from his office, discovering the two, and figuring out (correctly) that there's some sort of budding romance taking place.

Charles heads back to London where he's staying, and Hilary finds a reason to go to London, namely to get her hair done. But the only appointment is first thing in the morning, before the train would get her there, so she's going to have to stay overnight. She calls her and Victor's frend Hattie (Jean Simmons), a recent divorcée living off the alimony, to ask to stay there. What Hilary apparently doesn't know is that Hattie and Victor were romantically involved. Hilary spends several days in London consistently meeting up with Charles, while Hattie goes to see Victor, with the latter two planning a way to get back at poor Hilary.

That "revenge" is to try to get Charles to agree to a duel, and to use that duel to get Hilary to make up her mind about what to really do. Along the way, however, there's a lot of verbal jousting over who knows what about whom. The duel does eventually take place, albeit with somewhat surprising results.

It's mentioned in the opening credits that The Grass Is Greener is based on a stage play, and despite the attempts by the playwrights (who also wrote the screenplay for the movie adaptation) to open up the play, it's always very obviously based upon a stage play. Now, all five of the players give very good performances, and the movie isn't bad by any means. However, I must admit that it's once again the sort of material that probably would have worked better on the stage with a live audience than in this screen version. Watching it by myself, and with the stars not having any audience energy to play off of, it just feels like something is missing.

Of course, it's also not as if The Grass Is Greener is going to be widely revived on the stage for people to be able to see, so this movie version is going to have to suffice. It's a thoroughly professional outing from everyone involved.