Customer Reviews

The Hollywood Collection - Cary Grant: The Leading Man

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Although the more-recent Cary Grant documentary "A Class Apart" (which is included as an extra on the Blu-ray release of "North By Northwest") has kind of negated this earlier 1988 documentary special, CARY GRANT: THE LEADING MAN is a good retrospective of the star who still epitomizes male masculinity and romance in the movies.

Initially pegged by producers as just a "walking prop" to which they attached such vibrant leading ladies as Mae West and Sylvia Sidney, Cary Grant forged his own identity through hard work; soon establishing himself as the leading male star of choice for screwball and romantic comedy heroes. Opposite Katharine Hepburn, Grant sparkled in "Sylvia Scarlett", "Bringing Up Baby", "Holiday" and "The Philadelphia Story". In "His Girl Friday", Grant played the no-nonsense newspaper editor who wins the heart of former wife Rosalind Russell all over again; and Irene Dunne was his leading lady for "The Awful Truth" (regarded as quite possibly the best screwball comedy ever made), in addition to the poignant melodrama "Penny Serenade". Perhaps most importantly, Cary Grant became one of the first actors to go freelance, at a time when most actors were under contract to specific studios.

In "None But the Lonely Heart", Grant earned an Academy Award nomination, playing against type as a man with a criminal past, trying to make amends with his ill mother. Hitchcock transformed Cary Grant in the 1940's as a suave man-of-the-world with a sexy, dangerous edge, in such classics as "Suspicion" and "Notorious". Deborah Kerr was his luminous love interest in the three-hankie classic "An Affair to Remember" in 1957; and in the underrated "Father Goose", Grant was a bedraggled hermit, suddenly forced to help care for shipwrecked schoolteacher Leslie Caron and her gaggle of schoolchildren.

CARY GRANT: THE LEADING MAN is peppered with clips from many of Grant's best films, and has some illumimating interviews from former leading ladies Deborah Kerr and Leslie Caron.

The only thing that irks me at all about these Gene Feldman/Suzette Winter "Hollywood Collection" documentary DVDs is their advertised running-times as opposed to their real running-times. The back of the box for this Cary Grant DVD, for instance, says 127 minutes when in actuality the programme itself is 60 minutes. Factoring in the bonus materials (much of it appears on all the "Hollywood Collection" titles, like trailers and a "Meet the Producers" segment), then yes it would probably take just over two hours to watch all the content on the disc. It's just a bit misleading to think you're in for an indepth, lengthy documentary when all you really get is 60 minutes. Otherwise, these "Hollywood Collection" biography discs are a good buy for classic movie fans.