moonspinner55 Review of Walk Don't Run

Walk Don't Run (1966)

Running jokes, a slapstick ballet...and Cary Grant playing matchmaker

[4/10 · 18 October 2005]

American heel-to-toe competitor in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics cajoles his way into a flat occupied by an attractive working girl and her "roommate", a chipper British corporate executive who couldn't find other lodgings in over-crowded Japan. After a lively start, this relatively lackluster comedy loses most of its inspiration, mainly due to the initial set-up compromised by the arrival of the American dullard (Jim Hutton, pulling a Dean Jones). This remake of "The More The Merrier" from 1943 sadly plays like something from 1943 as well. There is so much lovely chemistry and interplay between Cary Grant and Samantha Eggar in the early scenes, this might have been a totally different (and improved) picture had it been played as a duet. Once the boy moves in, and the girl's fiancé gets jealous, and the kids are accused of being spies...well, it's not half as bad as Grant being forced into the third-wheel position, playing Fairy Godfather (he retired from films after this). Quincy Jones provides a bouncy score, and a few of the running gags are cute, but otherwise this is tired material. ** from ****