To me, this movie is perfection.

Thanks for the memories!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Producer: Leo McCarey. A Leo McCarey Production. Copyright 4 November 1942 by RKO-Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 12 November 1942. U.S. release: 4 November 1942. Australian release: 5 August 1943. 10,661 feet. 118 minutes.SYNOPSIS: An ex-burlesque dancer from New York marries an Austrian baron on the eve of WW2. A newspaperman tries to put her wise to the fact that the baron, far from being the patriot he pretends to be, is actually a front man for Hitler.NOTES: Nominated for an Academy Award for Sound Recording, but lost to Yankee Doodle Dandy.COMMENT: An uneasy mixture of both romantic and slapstick comedy with a more serious spy melodrama. Unpopular with both audiences and critics in its day, it is still a difficult film to enjoy even today, though the problem now is not quite as much its disquieting mixture of styles (even a normally super-reliable player like Slezak seems at sea in at least one of his scenes) as the unnecessary verbosity of its script. Unfortunately the garrulousness of the dialogue continues unabated from the first scene to the last, making each individual scene not only irritatingly drawn out but next to impossible to trim. Nor is this incessant impetus to surround witty dialogue with word clusters of a more mundane variety, the only script problem. In its serious moments, the plot is utterly unbelievable. Unfortunately at these moments, humor is not intended. Even worse is the way the scriptwriters facilely resolve potentially intriguing plot situations. We have a bit of suspense for instance when Grant and Rogers are trapped on their way to a Jewish internment camp. How do they get out of this tricky situation? The American ambassador intervenes. And right at the climax, here's heavy Slezak threatening the slim Rogers as she stands alone on the top deck of a ship. So what happens. Off-camera she does an absolutely impossible thing. Poor Slezak has a hard time of it, though he does manage most of the movie with his usual menacing flair. Grant of course is Grant, full of silly giggles, foolish impersonations, cheeky bravura and patriotic gravity. Miss Rogers gives the film's best performance because her role is conceived on a more believable plane. Her facility with accents helps. And she's stunningly costumed too. The support players are effective, though aside from Dekker (who doesn't come in till near the end), Lytess (later to win fame as Marilyn Monroe's dramatic coach), Boros (who disappears after some lengthy introductory scenes) and Shannon, most including Basserman have very little to do.McCarey's directing style doesn't help smarten the sluggish pace. He has chosen to handle the movie in TV style with lots and lots of close-ups. A feast for Rogers and Grant fans no doubt but unhelpful to those of us who wish he'd get on with moving the story along. Fortunately he does exhibit some of the felicitous touches of The Awful Truth like the swastika hands of Hitler's clock and Grant's smiling face outside the carriage window. But his timing is generally too slow, he over-milks every scene for more humor than it's worth. Some clever remarks, like Grant's sly comment that he came after facts but all he got were figures, are usually lost in the chatter.Production values are impressive. A pity the script is so constructed that trimming is virtually impossible. It would be at least twice the fun at two-thirds the length.

Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)Well, a Cary Grant movie I haven't seen! The movie is limited, for sure, but Cary Grant is at his funniest. Watch it for him.Oh, yes, Ginger Rogers is the female lead, and she's her likable self (minus the dancing). The overall plot is skewed (for good reason) by World War II. A trifle. But we have Nazi nonsense upsetting a hearty American romance in Europe. Including a clock where the hands are a swastika.This is the same period and historical truth as "Casablanca," which of course takes it all much further—better writing, better photography, more romantic. The backdrop of the war here is often quite tragic, but there is no tragedy for the leads, who are affected but keep going. There is even what looks like some real Hitler footage (not sure how they got it contemporaneously). The humor throughout is pointed but certainly floating above the real awfulness.The overall plot (the large arc) is an entertaining take with serious overtones on the war and the enemies we were facing, as well as the fate of Jews (already clear by 1942). The movie ends up being largely a series of little scenes and funny gags—many of which are so funny they make it worth it. But overall the movie deserves some slapping down for not trying very hard. And it deserves watching because it's so good and warm and funny in so many parts. Besides, it's a Cary Grant romance out of nowhere. Good!

This turkey has some of the sloppiest writing ever inflicted on A-list actors and a journeyman director. Example: It begins in Vienna. Ginger Rogers, clearly blue-collar American has a fancy Park Avenue name, a well-appointed apartment, and, for good measure, is engaged to a ranking Nazi official, Walter Slezak. How did she get there? You tell me. Next: Cary Grant saddled with the name Patrick O'Hara (equalled, if not eclipsed, only by his 'cockney' Ernie Mott in None But The Lonely Heart. By 1942 Grant was the epitome of urbane sophistication and there were surely other Hollywood contract actors who could have handled the role. More? Throughout the film - set, don't forget, in a Europe more and more under Nazi control, Grant, an American citizen has no problem travelling freely from country to country and in several cases a scene ends like an unresolved chord and we take up the action at a later date in a 'once out out of snake-filled well' cavalier fashion. Journeyman Leo McCary was light-years short of Lubitsch who did this thing so much better in titles like To Be Or Not To Be or even Ninotchka. See it if you're a Grant or Rogers completist and while you're watching remember that this was what Grant was doing whilst other Englishmen who'd established themselves in post-war Holllywood like David Niven, were back in blighty in uniform.

I am going to join the ranks of those who like and appreciate this film. First, it's a different sort of film. It's not exactly geared for the common masses. Even though Ginger Rogers' character has a lower-class background, the look and feel of the film is sophisticated...that is the direction this film effort goes toward and that is the direction it maintains. The scene where Ms. Rogers and the undercover agent try on regional American accents is the high point of the film. There was a message behind that scene which says America is all these kinds of people-- the mixed heterogeneous identity of America is a reality to uphold and preserve. At one point, the film does veer from comedy to drama (the Jewish citizens flee with a phony passport). Who says a film can't change tone? It gives us a unique glimpse at the main characters when they are considered to be Jewish for awhile.