July 9 movie: Mr. Lucky. Cary Grant is a wartime con artist who dodges the draft by stealing someone else's 4F card, and plans a grand scheme to bilk a war relief organization out of $200,000. Does the love of a good woman (Laraine Day) reform him? What do you think?
Grant is terrible at playing a street-smart gangster, but this movie has some high points. Like a running gag where the war relief ladies teach knitting to Grant and his driver, Crunk, who thereafter knits all the time and teaches it to the other hoodlums. Also Gladys Cooper in a supporting role as, believe it or not, a nice person. She specializes in the sadistic maternal figure (the mother in Now, Voyager and Separate Tables, and the mistress of novices in Song of Bernadette) but here she's the head of the war relief organization. I've seen her in a bunch of other movies but I'd never before seen her smile! Charles Bickford (who I always get confused with Joseph Cotten) also had a nice supporting role.
There's a thing about Grant teaching Cockney slang (bizarrely described as being from Australia) to Day that was so horrible it was funny, but in the unintentional comedy way. And Grant did get to be all tough guy violent in one scene, knocking Day's lights out (for her protection of course), and stomping his foot on the face of the bad guy. That was about as convincing as his Australian cockney slang. All told, I wouldn't watch this again.
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