The Worst Film Ever

Must See Movie...

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

George Stevens directed this comedy/drama starring Jean Arthur as Nora Shelley, who owns a boarding house in New England where she is staying, along with noted Harvard Law School professor Michael LightCap(played by Ronald Colman) who is working on a book. Joining them is Leopold Dilg(played by Cary Grant) who is said to be the gardener, but in reality is an escaped prisoner accused of arson and murder regarding a reputedly unsafe factory. Leopold claims his innocence, and when the professor gets wind of this, resolves to help him prove it by conducting his own investigation... Thoughtful and smart film with a good cast and involving story, with a most subdued performance from Grant(which makes for a welcome change!) Well worth seeking out.

It's ironic that two of my three favorite actors -- Cary Grant and Ronald Colman (the third being Spencer Tracy) -- are in this film...but that the film really belongs to Jean Arthur.I don't think the casting for this film could have been more perfect. Colman as the older, distinguished soon-to-be nominee to the Supreme Court. Grant as the slightly edgy maybe-guilty liberal. And Jean Arthur as the slightly ditzy, but always crusading for right female. Just perfect.Ronald Colman made this film the same year he made my favorite Colman film ("Random Harvest"), although he seems significantly older here. If you're a Colman fan you might be a bit disappointed here through much of the film, because while his scenes are absolutely critical to the story line, they are not exceptional scenes. But then, near the close of the movie, he has the best scene in the whole film -- in the courtroom, when he talks about the American justice system, and concludes by saying, "Think of the world, crying for this very law." A moment that almost makes you cry.Cary Grant does well here, but frankly, in terms of true billing, he would probably come third here. He's very good in this film...plays his edgy character almost perfectly. But there isn't a single scene of his where, in my view, he stands out.Jean Arthur shines throughout the production. I won't say it's her best role, but it's classic Arthur.In terms of the script, Bosley Crowther and Variety put it in perspective: "the essential purpose of this tale is to amuse with some devious dilemmas", and the film makes "transition from serious or melodramatic to the slap-happy". This film is a comedy, but with heavy doses of drama and a cause -- justice. There are times it makes you laugh, and times it makes you terribly sad.There's little here to criticize. Perhaps at 118 minutes it could have been just a little tighter in a few places. And then there's the ending. Who should Jean Arthur marry? The edgy liberal, or the serious Supreme Court judge? Two endings were filmed, and the studio let preview audiences decide...and they chose Grant. I think that was a mistake. It would have been a better ending had she stayed with Colman. But it does work either way...which is one of the reasons this script is so cleverly worked.Very highly recommended.

This overextended, talky, heavily contrived entertainment survives for longer than it deserves on the star power of Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. An exciting opening montage depicts wrongfully convicted "arsonist" Grant escaping from prison; he injures his ankle in the process and barely makes it to the cottage of former flame Arthur, a schoolteacher (living with her mother) who is renting the place to stuffed-shirt legal theorist and Supreme Court hopeful Ronald Colman. Grant settles into Arthur's attic, passing himself off as "Joseph the gardener" when Colman sees him, and Arthur spends the rest of the movie trying to 1) vindicate Grant; 2) decide which of the male stars she'll end up with. It's a good setup for romantic comedy, but the movie also imagines that it's a legal drama with Big, Important Statements to make, and it bogs down in pseudo-George Bernard Shaw dialogues between social agitator Grant and pompous academic Colman on the legal process. Every so often there's a comic suspense scene with the dim locals about to close in on Grant (one such scene, involving a pack of hounds and a pair of slippers, has good slapstick timing). But although Grant's desperate magnetism and Arthur's fluttery indecisiveness keep us watching, the contrivances eventually lose their charm and turn to lead. As with most romantic comedies, there's no real competition between the leads--Colman is made to deliver so many solemn speeches he loses us entirely, and although we're told Arthur is having a thawing effect on him, we're not convinced. And as with most thrillers, the last few plot devices are unbelievable--the movie should have ended with the discovery of a surprise witness, but it slogs on to get to a big mob-scene climax (where Colman unleashes his hokiest speech yet.) By the time the ending comes, we no longer care.

An uneasy mixture of comedy and drama. Jean Arthur is mixed up in a love triangle with an escaped convict (Cary Grant, totally miscast) and a law professor about to be appointed to the Supreme Court (Ronald Colman, too British to be this character). Grant has been accused (and actually convicted) of burning down a factory and killing a man. He claims he's innocent, despite being a famous rabble-rouser. Arthur, who is working as a secretary for Coleman, hides Grant in her cabin and slowly tries to convince Colman to help with the injustice of the situation. It's a very awkwardly plotted film, and the attempts at comedy fall flat. I never really believed Grant as a rabble-rouser, and he just can't seem to handle the dramatic angle of the picture at all. Colman is pretty much the opposite. The film basically leaves him out of the comedy. Neither of the actors' romantic intentions come off as believable. Well, I guess they are believable in that anyone would want Jean Arthur, but it just doesn't fit in with the social issues angle. Pretty much nothing about it works besides Arthur. In my mind she can do no wrong. It isn't an especially bothersome picture to watch, really, even with all its problems, but it's far from good.