In Mr. Lucky, Cary Grant plays a career-gambler. He is tough, unscrupulous, slick. He runs a gambling boat called The Fortuna, which he docks in Manhattan. In order to avoid the draft, he takes on the identity of one of his crew members who has just died. Unfortunately, this crew member has had 3 prior convictions (which Grant doesn’t know), but the good thing about this guy is that he was declared unfit to be drafted.
Through various twists and turns of the plot, Cary Grant and his gambling cronies decide to put together a scheme to cheat the female-run War Relief organization out of the money they are going to make at a huge charity function.
Of course, Cary Grant (who is impersonating somebody else) falls in reluctant Tough-Guy love with one of the women who works at War Relief. She has no idea that he is a gambler, and also no idea that his name is not actually his real name.
In order to help with war relief, Cary Grant is taught how to knit by a little old woman in the war relief offices. He has no patience with the process. He is also mortified to be knitting. He can’t even bear to hold the knitting needles. His mortification makes him angry.
But then, as he starts to get good at it, he becomes obsessed. He knits in cabs, he knits on the street. Humor: His casually oblivious face, serious, intent, his fingers flying back and forth, suddenly exclaiming at one point, “I dropped a stitch!” as people do double-takes at him.
He doesn’t want to get involved with any woman, especially a nice woman, because he knows he’s a “heel”. But a semi-relationship develops with the cutie from War Relief. I found their tentative romance quite touching. She gives him a tender good-bye kiss at one point, and he doesn’t really respond. He’s Mr. Tough Guy, Mr. Rat-a-tat-tat, Mr. No Strings. She pulls back and says, “Did you like that?”
He says flatly, “I haven’t decided yet.”
He turns, walks away, leaves her at her door, and gets in his car. We then see him driving across a bridge in the next shot, and you see the signs coming at him: NO LEFT TURN, NO LEFT TURN, NO LEFT TURN, NO LEFT TURN … and then suddenly his lips tighten, his eyes get intense, and he whips the wheel around, makes a wheel-screeching left turn, in defiance of the insistent signs, a nice touch. The next thing we see is him bursting back into her house, where she is now standing on the staircase, and she looks at him, stunned. He races up the stairs, grabs her in his arms, and kisses her madly.
He pulls back, and then says in the same flat voice, “Yup. I liked it.” Then he turns and dashes away.
He has a moment in the film of revelation which is wonderfully acted. There’s no dialogue. It’s just a look on his face, a very inward-looking expression, where he makes the decision: I don’t want to be a heel anymore. I need to give this up.
A long long shot of Cary Grant’s face, and all he is doing is thinking.
And it’s as interesting as an entire scene of dialogue. Just watching him thinking.
I’ve always thought Cary Grant underrated as an actor. I’m glad that someone who knows something about acting (meaning you, Obsessed Girl) admires his work. Why, I almost feel perceptive.
This is a terrific CG movie. I read recently that the character he is playing was based on a real-life well-known LA gambler at the time, a sort of Robin-Hood figure that people liked.
Of course, he was a mobster and a gangster in real life and definitely had a lot of blood on his hands. But the character that Cary plays is kind of like the image that people wanted the gambler to have. And due to the mob ties with the movie studios….
I watched it again, and the knitting tutorial is even funnier. The dead-eyed look of concentration (mixed with embarrassment) on his face … so damn funny.
I now have it on order from the Milwaukee Public Library. One copy in the system, at the Zablocki branch. I expect it will be at Central for me on Saturday.
I used to crochet, myself, but that is a far less dramatic skill.
i have seen and enjoyed that film, i never knew its title. thanks.