Once Upon a Honeymoon

I'm amazed at the bad reception that Once Upon a Honeymoon got from other reviewers here. It's not the greatest film from either the stars or the director, but far from the worst. See Satan Never Sleeps or My Son John for Leo McCarey's worst. And it's one of Walter Slezak's best roles.

Slezak plays the fictional Baron Von Luber who like the Fuehrer was Austrian born and played a big hand in the Anschluss. After that he became a Nazi ambassador of good will. But in his wake countries seem to fall to the Germans after every one of his missions. He's a rising star in the Nazi movement.

He's also married a show business American wife in the person of Ginger Rogers. That and his activities arouse the curiosity of editor Harry Shannon and commentator Cary Grant.

Once Upon a Honeymoon is very similar to that other Cary Grant film from Alfred Hitchcock, Notorious. Of course the Hitchcock film has Grant as an FBI agent who gets Ingrid Bergman to marry Claude Rains to spy on his postwar activities in a country with no extradition. Rains actually becomes an object of some audience sympathy even as a Nazi, but Slezak never does.

In fact his role is similar to that other exhibit of the master race found in that other Hitchcock film, Lifeboat. But he's gotten in a way that the gauleiter of the lifeboat never is. Cary Grant damns him with faint praise and a shrewd use of reverse psychology on the Nazi mind. Slezak's reactions to Grant's broadcast are worth seeing the film alone.

Leo McCarey makes some very serious points about the Nazis mixed in with the humor. When Grant and Rogers are caught when they think they're Jewish, it's a very harrowing predicament indeed until they are providentially rescued.

Once Upon A Honeymoon though firmly dated to World War II, holds up very well in the laugh and propaganda departments both.

It's a war film, a bit of a horror film, a code busting romantic comedy, and a drama. In 1938 Austria, journalist Patrick O'Toole (Cary Grant) comes to American Kathy O'Hara (Ginger Rogers) to let her know that her future husband, the Baron Franz Von Luber (Walter Sleazak), is a Nazi. Except the conversation does not seem serious - ever.

O'Toole flirts shamelessly with O'Hara. She flirts back. But she does marry the Baron. And there are numerous other meetings later on where in one case O'Toole just decides to order a big lunch from room service in Poland, take his clothes off in the Baron's suite and borrow his pajamas, and take a nap. And each time Grant and Rogers meet they continue their flirtation and then Ginger goes back to her husband, while romantic comedy music plays. Then Rogers just suddenly decides to leave the Baron for Grant. They traipse across Europe looking for a way back to America - even getting stuck in a concentration camp for awhile that inaccurately looks more like Juvenile hall.

For a war movie there are really no serious dramatic confrontations. It all plays out like The Awful Truth combined with the Hope/Crosby Road movies except in War torn Europe and the whole thing is off putting.

How can a film with an acclaimed director - Leo McCarey - bomb this badly, especially with a talented cast. The production values are top notch - this is not some Ed Wood film, so in fact it is worse than one. In an Ed Wood film you see things done wrong - poor and silly art design, laughably bad dialogue, poor cinematography. So this even fails as a bad film, because it is expertly presented, but it manages to be weird and boring to the point it is just annoying.

Although there is a silly side to this movie, I really don't think that its only value is as a curiosity. In reality, it was a singular vehicle for Ginger Rogers to flex her acting muscles, instead of merely being a sidekick in a dance routine. She is something to behold in this movie. And, I maintain that if you are a Cary Grant fan, it's nothing to sit through this slightly confectionery film. It is practically astonishing that the Jewish issue was addressed in a movie made in 1942. Finally, it's worth pointing out that any average film from this period is Shakespearean compared to the dreck on offer most of the time these days.

Comedy? I don't think so. Even Grant's charms can't save this one. A comedy set in Europe during WWII isn't impossible (see To Be Or Not To Be, also from 1942). But this one includes scenes with Hitler, and jokes about Nazis, not very funny I may add. The story is too ludicrous, the so-called jokes terrible. Whoever liked the movie should check is head. The ending is SO-Stupid! And what honeymoon? Forget it. Even worse than Penny Serenade. Beware. Read a book, eat, do something, anything else.

Leo McCarey helms this 1942 lark, whose moods and genre conventions---saccharine romance, espionage adventure, screwball farce and war-time propaganda---swing to and fro so regularly that it's difficult to be bored even when the tipping scales of narrative contrivance become somewhat stressful at times. It's soapboxy-er than its early blitheness suggests, and at one point, the customary lead comic duo is mistaken for Jews and have a close shave with quite a grim fate. At times, because of the nonsensicality of the wildly contrived plot, the brashness of swastika hands on clocks and downer developments initially feel mislaid before they're consistently salvaged by a highly competent group of surprisingly naturalistic and genuinely funny performers, but meets its challenges admirably when it matters.

Vienna, 1938. Ginger Rogers plays Katie O'Hara, a Brooklyn dancer who's flown off to marry the rich and high-ranking Austrian Baron Von Luber, a Nazi VIP on the sly, for status and prosperity. Chin dimple extraordinaire Cary Grant plays hyper-transatlantic correspondent Pat O'Toole, who receives a job as a radio commentator to obtain a rare interview with the impending baroness to expose the Baron as a Nazi undercover. The Baron is played by Walter Slezak, that indelible character actor who managed to get pigeonholed as cunning Nazis. You may recognize him from Hitchcock's Lifeboat. Pat's not deterred by Katie's unwillingness to be questioned, and manages to meet her posing as a tailor.

Obviously, the reporter becomes smitten with Katie and frantically attempts to disabuse her regarding her fiancée. A turning point slams into this happy-go-lucky buffoonery when Hitler takes Austria, and Katie begins to learn the truth about her new husband's dealings. The two brash Yankees team up and go on the lam through Norway, Holland and Belgium before sudden sabotage missions are sprung on them and create grave dramatic tension. "This is the sort of thing that can make a man a Republican!" he huffs.

I had my doubts about Ginger Rogers. Not having seen many of her best known films such as those with Fred Astaire, I thought she may prove yet another example of how incomparable Irene Dunne was alongside Archie boy. About forty minutes into Once Upon a Honeymoon, I was firmly disabused of my presumptions. She has an inborn knack for being natural in a way that even transcends the stagy tenets of the Golden Age, saying a lot without saying much, and saying something different with her face than what she's saying with her mouth. I can't say this excuses the inanity of Archie earlier on managing to trick her so effortlessly into thinking straight vodka is a glass of water, but overall, she's not an uncomplicated Dumb Blonde Type present only to hang off Cary Grant's shoulder. McCarey takes the time to photograph her surprisingly emotive disillusionment about the state of affairs around her.

I'm frankly willing to forego any criticisms or dismissals of any moments that border on cornball or lugubrious purely for reward of the scene where O'Toole and Von Luber finally happen upon one another and have a man-to-man sit-down. It's one of those delicately cool scenes where two characters hold their cards firmly against their vests, but say just enough and share just enough sidelong glances to be satisfied of the other's hand. It's an exciting scene that raises the stakes and ratchets up the tension in a subdued, completely unexpected way. In fact, McCarey and his cast are so graceful that it only falls apart when it finally reaches the bungled ending, which I suppose is what happens when you try to balance propaganda and slick storytelling. Regardless, though quite the opposite of cynical or acerbic, it has a streak of the spunk and cunning of a Billy Wilder film, or the "shpontanuity," as one of the Baron's comrades suggests.