moments from this movie i will treasure forever: - cary grant prematurely opening a door to start the first scene before the title cards have finished playing and the narrator saying “not yet cary.”- ginger rogers telling marilyn monroe she’s going to rip her blonde hair out by its black roots. - ginger rogers firing a rubber band at marilyn monroe’s ass. - cary grant absolutely off his tits on a youth serum formulated by a monkey that makes him believe he’s twenty years old so he jumps out a window, gets a crew cut, buys a sports car, and recklessly drives marilyn monroe all over town at about 100 mph resulting in her nearly being decapitated.
Grant and Rogers are such a delightful idiots 🙏 the real “buffoons,” you could say. Meta screwball comedy nostalgia with Howard Hawks’s slightly neurotic touch, yet also quite a free-spirited mindset, because Ginger Rogers and Cary Grant’s physical comedy performances almost seem to float within an improvisational environment in certain scenes. I bet they had so much fun acting here.And for me also, this was so much fun to watch, there are a few iconic moments here, along with a subtle easing of Cold War anxiety at the core of the story. The youth serum literally creates youthful enthusiasm and foolishness, blended with drama and Freudian slips, so that when I watch Grant leaping around and going wild near Marilyn Monroe, and Rogers reminiscing about her youthful crush, the film starts to feel like a playful psychological release as much as a comedy.Howard Hawks was, according to rumors, somewhat dissatisfied with the film because he felt its sense of plausibility was lost. But if I'm being honest, that very implausibility is what makes it an almost absurdly successful piece, since it gently mocks our Hollywood star images by creating this kind of off-rhythmic dance through its own comedy.You can notice it immediately in the way the film breaks the fourth wall within its very first seconds. The slapstick hits with that uneven tempo which, paradoxically, turns it into precisely the kind of imperfect dance that’s easy to move along with, even if someone steps on your toes a few times. I still smiled, so who cares.An easy 4 stars from me, auteur-driven experience and a monkey that invents a serum many of us would probably want for ourselves, just to bring that youthful excitement back inside our heads. But the funny truth is that we are all still the same young idiots at heart, we simply grew older because responsibilities swept us along with them. And that’s precisely why the film’s sense of freedom feels so pleasurable, almost irresistible, something you can’t help but surrender to and enjoy. An amazing film. 78/100
