Product Details

• Actors: Loretta Young, Cary Grant, Jackie Kelk, Marion Burns, Henry Travers
• Directors: Lowell Sherman
• Writers: Harrison Jacobs, Ralph Graves
• Producers: Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph M. Schenck, Raymond Griffith, William Goetz
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 1.0), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), Spanish (Dolby Digital 1.0)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: January 6, 2004
• Run Time: 62 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000DD77S
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #42,296 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #58 in	Movies & TV > Drama > Family Life > Single Parents
  #84 in	Movies & TV > Classics > Classic Stars > Grant, Cary

• For more information about "Born to Be Bad" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Cary grant stars as a dairy farmer whose kindness towards and unmarried woman (loretta Young), and her son results in betrayal. Malcolm Trevor (Grant) and his wife (Marion Burns) are unable to conceive a child of their own. So when Malcolm's truck accidentally hits Letty's (Young) son (Henry Travers) and Letty is declared an unfit mother, the couple gladly take the boy into their own home to raise as their own. Determined to take advantage of Malcolm's riches, however, Letty tries to blackmail him. In the end, selfless love and charity are celebrated in this heartwarming well-made classic.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too Boring to Be Bad, December 3, 2004

By	J. Michael Click (Fort Worth, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Movie: ** DVD Quality: ** DVD Extras: ****

I've seen enough of Loretta Young's and Cary Grant's early work to know that this movie surely represents some kind of nadir for both stars. Despite their considerable skills, no one could possibly turn this sow's ear of a script into anything resembling a decent film. Loretta plays a 22-year-old never- married mother of a 7-year-old son; the kid is being raised to be just as morally compromised as Mom. Enter Cary as a victim of one of their scams; before you can say, "What the hey?!!!?", Cary and his wife are raising Loretta's son ... Loretta's moving in on Cary to get her boy back ... Cary's wife is all-forgiving of her husband's dalliance ... Loretta does the "noble" thing by walking away and abandoning her son to Cary and wife's care. This all takes a scant 61 minutes that drags on f-o-r-e-v-e-r because no one does anything but talk, talk, and talk ... oh! they also slam doors - lots of doors - in Cary's lavish mansion. It couldn't have been fun for the actors to make this rubbage, but at least they must have known enough to stay away from the finished film!

Certainly whoever wrote the insert notes for this Fox Home Video release never watched the movie! They identify Cary's character as a "dairy farmer" (he's actually the very wealthy head of a dairy corporation); they name aged 50-something character player Henry Travers (Clarence the Angel in "It's a Wonderful Life") as the actor playing Loretta's 7-year-old son; and they describe the film as a "heartwarming, well-made classic" as well as a "gripping classic" (maybe they had this confused with Cary and Loretta's later film, "The Bishop's Wife", which really is a classic).

I doubt that whoever was in charged of transferring the film to video paid much attention to the movie, either. The picture is grainy throughout with some noticeable jumps (indicating bad splices); and the sound is frequently muddy as well. At least Fox doesn't claim it was restored. There is a nice selection of trailers from other movies Grant starred in at Fox, including "I Was a Male War Bride" (1949), "People Will Talk" (1951), "Monkey Business" (1952), "Kiss Them For Me" (1957), and "An Affair to Remember" (1957) ... but the trailer to this film isn't among them. There's also a small photo gallery.

Overall, I can't in good conscience recommend this DVD to anyone except the most diehard Young and Grant fans. But if for some reason you insist on watching it, check out the jurors in the trial scene ... doesn't the man on the front row to the right of your screen bear a resemblance to the producer of the film, Darryl F. Zanuck?

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars BORN TO BE DISMAL ON DVD, January 28, 2004

By	Nix Pix (Windsor, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"Born to Be Bad" is a very uncharacteristic Cary Grant movie. Uncharacteristic because it's at the beginning of his career, features him in an almost non-comedic role and has him cast as a man double-crossed by a woman of easy virtue in an almost maudelin plot. The story concerns Grant hitting the son of a woman of easy virtue (Loretta Young) with his car. He then having to make the mends. The rest is pure melodrama but pulled off with such panache that you'd scarcely mind any of the hockum. Truly, this is a very, very good movie.
TRANSFER: Unfortunately the same can't be said for FOX's transfer. We get a very dirty, very gritty, very grainy transfer that - although free of digital anomalies - is so heavily damanged by age that seeing the film is hardly worth the effort. Black and contrast levels are extremely weak, fine detail is lost in practically every scene and the ravages of time are glaring and obvious throughout. The audio hasn't been cleaned up either for a slight hiss and some unexpected pops along the way.
EXTRAS: Trailers from the other Grant films. Boring, unworthy and disappointing.
BOTTOM LINE: Someone should point out to studio executives that films pre-Star Wars are worth the time, effort and, oh yes, the MONEY that is required to make them sparkle like they did when they were premiered. Really, history is getting shafted here!!!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice Pre-Code, September 14, 2004

By	Fernando Silva "fedo" (Santiago de Chile.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I don't want to be too extensive. I only want to tell you this short (61 minutes of running time) Pre-Code, is a goody-goody, with Cary Grant, and especially Loretta Young, who is great in it...she looks ravishing, great gowns, slim-fitted, beautiful face-eyes, fresh beauty, great spunk.

I cannot understand why (I've read it) Loretta was "stereotyped" and "dismissed", mainly in the 1930's as being a so-so or bad actress, and being only a "clotheshorse"...untrue...she's radiantly good (Well BAD) (chuckles) here.

It's difficult to think of this LORETTA...when one thinks of the 1940's Loretta in "The Farmer's Daughter"....or her other teaming with Cary Grant, the excellent & cute & sentimental "The Bishop's Wife"...a completely different stuff.

I wanna watch more early '30s Loretta, not only her virginal-good characters (like "Zoo in Budapest" (I'd "kill" to see this one) or "The Crusades" (here she's mostly "decorative" IMHO)....but stuff like "Midnight Mary" (I've read it's TOP) "Employee's Entrance", "Taxi". "The Hatchet Man".....

The quality of the DVD is pretty good.

Pre-Code lovers watch it!