Grace Kelly: TO CATCH A THIEF, THE SWAN
Thanks to Kelly’s Oscar win, The Country Girl is interesting as a historical curiosity — it’s the sort of "gutsy" and "realistic" film adaptation of a respected stage play that was very popular among the filmgoing elite of the 1950s (e.g., Tea and Sympathy, A Hatful of Rain), but that I generally find both lame and artificial. Bing Crosby’s drunk is about as convincing as Kelly’s frumpish housewife (a role that should have gone to original choice Jennifer Jones), but that didn’t prevent a number of Academy members from making sure Crosby, director George Seaton, and the film itself received Academy Award nominations. Seaton, in fact, did win an Oscar for his adaptation of Clifford Odets‘ play.
Green Fire, released at the end of 1954, is the only Kelly vehicle I haven’t watched, yet. Her male co-stars, Stewart Granger and Paul Douglas, aren’t among my favorites, but since the film is set in some movie-movie South American jungle and was directed by Andrew Marton (of the highly enjoyable King Solomon’s Mines), it must at least be worth a look.
To Catch a Thief (1955) is Hitchcock-light. What makes this suspenseless comedy-adventure worthwhile is the film’s cast: Cary Grant (above) is quite humorous as a maybe/maybe-not French Riviera jewel thief, while Kelly has a blast pursuing him and Jessie Royce Landis has just as big a blast as Kelly’s mom. (Four years later, she’d be playing Grant’s mom in North by Northwest.) Now, some find the Grant-Kelly chemistry erotically irresistible. I failed to notice it. Perhaps it’s that unlike all those people with really kinky imaginations, when I see exploding fireworks in a movie all I can think of are exploding fireworks. That’s it.
Charles Walters‘ musical-romance High Society (1956) is one of the best-remembered and most dearly beloved movies of the 1950s. There are Cole Porter songs, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Kelly herself singing the Oscar-winning ditty "True Love," and an all-around, exuberant gaiety that feels as genuine as a three-dollar bill. Don’t miss it if that’s your pleasure.
Charles Vidor’s The Swan (1956), Kelly’s last film, is a great-looking production, but the approach to the story’s themes — an ice-cold beauty that must thaw; duty vs. love vs. infatuation — feels a little stale at times. Estelle Winwood, however, is a hoot in a small supporting role, and both Jessie Royce Landis (once again as Kelly’s mother) and Alec Guinness (right) are their usual charismatic selves.
Additionally, TCM will show Jean Masson’s 32-minute documentary The Wedding in Monaco (1956) — I haven’t managed to sit through more than five minutes of this one — and, of more interest, the 59-minute Studio One teledrama "The Rockingham Tea Set" (1950), in which a pre-Hollywood Grace Kelly plays a young private nurse who runs into some serious trouble while handling neurotic invalid Louise Allbritton. Future Oscar winner Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton, Planet of the Apes) directed.
Also, it should be noted that Grace Kelly, much like Kim Novak, Audrey Hepburn, Leslie Caron, Marilyn Monroe, and other young female stars of the 1950s, was frequently the love interest of men at the very least a good decade older than she was: Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Ray Milland, Cary Grant, and Clark Gable (in Mogambo) were all 20+ years older; Alec Guinness, William Holden, Frank Sinatra, Stewart Granger, and Robert Cummings (in Dial M for Murder) were more than a decade older.
So, Grace Kelly isn’t one of my idols — mine, in fact, tend to be anything but Technicolor perfect. Yet, as a film lover I find it too bad that Kelly quit movies when she was only 27 years old. Perhaps in time she would have developed into a true actress; I mean, cool blonde Catherine Deneuve, whose career spans more than half a century, keeps getting ever more fascinating as the years go by.
Think about it; just imagine what Luis Buñuel might have come up with for Grace Kelly in the ’60s and ’70s had she been daring enough to star in one of his films. (The very unBuñuelesque Marnie and The Turning Point were offered to Kelly; one can only wonder what the more mature actress/woman would have brought to those films.)
Grace Kelly would have turned 80 next Nov. 12.
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Tags: Classic Movies, George Seaton, Grace Kelly, Green Fire, High Society, The Country Girl, The Rockingham Tea Set, The Swan, To Catch a Thief, Turner Classic Movies
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Grace Kelly was the most beautiful woman whoever lived.
Even if GK wasn’t exactly your cup of tea, many of the amazing filmmakers the U.S. foundation established in her name probably are, so you can always give her props for that!
Chris,
Thanks for writing. Indeed, I’m 100% behind those who support the arts.
And here is the link to The Princess Grace Foundation-USA:
http://www.pgfusa.org/
Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief is the most luminous apearance in film that I have seen.