The photo on the video tape for Every Girl Should Be Married<\/i> was embarrassing (even more embarrassing than the title). Cary Grant, looking his most kerflummoxed, staring straight out at the camera, clasping Betsy Drake in his arms, and she gazesup at him with happy adoration – but then – in a rather disturbing twist, he has a stethoscope around his neck, which gives the whole thing a strange fetishistic look. Like erotica from the 1950s.<\/p>\n
Every Girls Should Be Married<\/i> tells the story of a girl (Betsy Drake, Grant’s real-life wife for a time) who spends most of her time sitting at soda counters, and reading parenting magazines, and baby magazines, and decorating magazines, and dreaming about the day when she will get married. Because, don’t you know, “every girl should be married”. One day, as she looks for a magazine on the rack, she sees Cary Grant, and he is also looking through a baby magazine. She gets an Insta-Crush on him. <\/p>\n
And … well, there’s no better way to put it: she begins to stalk him in an extremely insane way. The whole thing is treated comedically, but in modern times, he probably would have reported her to the police!<\/p>\n
She finds out that he is a confirmed bachelor, and also a pediatrician (who professes that he hates kids.)<\/p>\n
This does not deter Anabel at all. She continues to stalk him. She interviews people behind his back, his haberdasher, his tailor. She sends away for his high school and college yearbooks. She memorizes every single fact about him as though she is studying for a mid-term.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I don’t know what that’s like at ALL.<\/p>\n
Cary Grant is onto her from the beginning. He is kind to her, but also very firm. “I am not the marrying type. Please stop talking to my haberdasher.” However, Grant has a nice little old lady nurse, who basically helps Anabel in her stalking quest, because she thinks Anabel is “kind of cute”.<\/p>\n
Cary Grant, at one point, does an imitation of Anabel. It is funnier and funnier every time I see it. Grant complains to his nurse that he can’t go anywhere anymore, because whenever he turns around there is Anabel smiling up at him, pretending it is a coincidence (“Oh, Doctor, fancy meeting you here!”). Cary Grant does her goofy striding walk to a T, makes his smile huge and insane, and sashays around his office. You know that underneath his urbane suits, the slicked hair, is this acrobat. So when he suddenly does something crazily physical, it’s exhilarating.<\/p>\n
There is an extremely good “break-up scene”, which, actually, is not really a “breakup scene” because, as Grant continuously reminds her, THEY NEVER DATED IN THE FIRST PLACE. But she is relentless, creative, and determined to nail this man. She has him over for dinner, and of course she knows exactly his favorite foods, and spends the whole day cooking them. He finally has to come clean, and be firm with her.<\/p>\n
She keeps trying to interrupt, and Grant’s acting in this scene is terrific. It’s completely real, very touching, and would fit into any modern-day movie. She finally gets the hint, and throws him out. She is devastated. She sits on her couch, her head sort of tilted back, with tears streaming down her face. Very effective work.<\/p>\n
And then randomly, in the last 5 minutes of the movie, good old Eddie Albert shows up. <\/p>\n
One last thing: Franchot Tone is the other big male lead in this sweet little movie. He’s another one of those people (like Morris Carnovsky, like John Garfield) that I feel like I know personally, because of my studying of the Group Theatre. Franchot Tone was involved in the Group Theatre for only its first couple of years, before the better money of Hollywood called. He became very successful, and yet a part of him was always yearning to be back with “the Group”. There were a couple of tough seasons where his “donations” kept the Group afloat. He always looked back on his time with the Group as the best years of his life as an actor.<\/p>\n
It was good to see him. His name – Franchot Tone – is like the name of an old friend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The photo on the video tape for Every Girl Should Be Married was embarrassing (even more embarrassing than the title). Cary Grant, looking his most kerflummoxed, staring straight out at the camera, clasping Betsy Drake in his arms, and she … Continue reading