MovieChat Forums > Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) Discussion > Another Classic Comedy

Another Classic Comedy

posted 9 years ago by Eric266
5 replies | jump to latest

Big fan of Cary Grant's and I've only recently discovered the loveliness that is Myrna Loy in the Thin Man movies. This is a great pairing of them, but as some other posters have stated, they seem a bit old for the roles. However, it is a movie so I was able to suspend belief.

Jim and Muriel Blandings live in a small apartment in New York with their two teenage daughters. They are literally living on top of each other. Jim decides they should move to the country and they buy a fixer upper in Connecticut. The house turns out to be a lemon and they have to tear it down and build a brand new one. Jim and Muriel have different ideas about how the house should be built. As the costs spiral, Jim and Muriel start putting up their own walls in their marriage. Jim's job as an adman suffers as he is so focused on the house, that he can't focus on his latest ad campaign for Wham Ham.

Grant and Loy are amazing as ever. Grant's ability to convey comedic frustration with his body language and his eyes has always been why he is a favorite of mine. His reactions to every new bill and/or invoice is great fun. Loy is perfect as the sweet, loyal, yet somewhat dimwitted wife. The scene of her explaining how a request for a new floor in the utility room exploded into a $1,200 bill is a classic of subdued comedy.

The supporting cast is good. Melvyn Douglas as their lawyer and friend, Bill, is a nice counterbalance to Grant's and Loy's married couple bickering. Reginald Denny as the architect tries to keep a lid on the zaniness of all the changes to his blue prints. The two young actresses playing the Blandings' daughters are cute and play off their crazy parents by being the voice of reason ("bicker, bicker, bicker."). Lastly the various actors playing the work crews give fun performances, especially the well driller.

If you've seen "The Money Pit" with Tom Hanks or "Are We Done Yet?" with Ice Cube, both of those movies take their queues from "Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House." It well worth a look just for its two lead actors.

My memory foam pillow says it can't remember my face. I can tell its lying.

[–] Merrida 9 years ago

How do they seem "old" for this movie? And I think I may have lost what point you were trying to make when summing up the movie.

This is without a doubt one of my favourite movies. I love Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. I was also first turned onto ML from The Thin Man series. Their chemistry was simply perfect.

Loy and Grant work so well together. And as has been mentioned, Grant's ability to convey so much with just a look, a gesture, an expression, his body language. Brilliant! He's a genius with comedic timing.

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[–] pilarinhavana 9 years ago

I don't know where he's getting "old" from. The stars were 43 and 42 at the time. Considering WWII would have stopped any new home building and the suburb boom began just after. Also, the mortgage is mostly likely a 15 year one.

[–] steely3000 9 years ago

Yeah I didn't really see them as old. This is a classic comedy from beginning to end. Melvyn Douglas gives a terrific performance in a supporting role. It's hard to find a bad acting job in this; one interesting note is that Jason Robards Sr. plays Mr. Retch.

Whenever this movie is on TCM I watch it from start to finish. The happy ending to end the film is like 30 seconds long, but is cute and wonderful.

[–] mafrie 8 years ago

One of my favorite oldies. The only thing that makes me cringe about this movie is how they talked to and treated Gussie, I mean even the kids talked down to her. And they stole her idea about the slogan which was awful. That slogan saved Mr. Blandings his job but no one even considered how wrong it was. I'm sure there were people who were bothered back when this movie first aired but it wasn't the white people.

[–] liscarkat (18600) 6 years ago

At the end, it was shown that the maid's picture ended up in the advertisement. I think it's likely she got a bonus or profited in some way for coming up with the slogan.