ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 207, 11 June 1943, Page 11

ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON

(R.K.0, Radio)

BAD mark for R.K.O.Radio and Leo McCareywho should know better-for using the war as a_background for Ginger Rogers to

practise acting against. And an extra bad mark for them for bad scissors-and-paste work in joining together the bits of newsreel and the bits of studio reel in Once Upon a Honeymoon, and for the misuse of Cary Grant who, as the woman in front of me said, "Held the whole thing together." Not that I went to Once Upon a Honeymoon walking on my eyebrows in anticipation of a Great Show — after Stage Door and Fifth Avenue Girl and Roxie Hart I felt pretty sure that the Rogers would still be Working Very Hard at Acting, having apparently discarded those wonderful assets, her hands and her feet. It’s true, I regret to report; she doesn’t use her feet at all, and she uses her hands just the bare twiceonce to wave aside Gestapo officials while she carpet-sweeps her way from a virtual prison, and once to swing a handbag in a way to tell a story. The honeymoon concerned is that of Miss Rogers and a very wealthy German Baron, who, as she gradually finds’ out, has a very dirty finger in the European pie. So, as they journey from Austria to Czechoslovakia and then to Poland, the countries topple like card-houses behind them. Of course Cary Grant, as a news commentator, keeps on giving her hints, but it’s not till Poland falls ("Oh," said the woman in front, "that’s exactly the same scene they had in Dangerous Moonlight"), that she is Really Convinced. Then she goes away to Norway with Cary Grant, still commenting, and then to Belgium and then to France. And in Paris she swears allegiance to the United States, which she loves. And to serve the United States she has to do a Very Difficult Thing; she has to leave Cary Grant and go back to the Baron, her lawful husband, to find out what Hitler intends to do next, You can see the sort of film it is. It’s supposed to be funny, and exciting, and romantic, and topical, and patriotic. But it will probably make many people very angry. I don’t mind if Hollywood uses the same scene of ruins in two different pictures-after all, Hollywood is probably a bit shorter than other parts of the world on this commodity; but I do mind it when Hollywood extends its all-the-year-round honeymoon attitude to a smoking and bleeding Europe, __ No, Mr. McCarey, take the nasty film away. And another thing: please don't push Albert Basserman around for a few seconds just because he fits a Polish general’s uniform. He’s an actor, you know, a good one.