This premiered yesterday on TCM. In his intro, Robert Osborne said this was one of Cary Grant's least-known films. Ten minutes in, you know why. Matthew was 9 or 10 when he loses his father. A title card then moves us forward 12 years, meaning Matthew should be 21 or 22, but is played by the 36 year old Grant! It doesn't help that Matthew is an a-hole! He rejects his first son because he is crippled. So instead of naming the kid after his dead father, Matthew sticks it to him by naming him after the hated Fleetwood! The irony that Matthew becomes the very kind of man he despises Fleetwood for being - landowner (and slave owner), politician, member of the upper-crust - is completely lost on Z-Grade director Frank Lloyd.
As if he knew he was horribly miscast, Grant tears through this like he's on crack! Martha Scott struggles mightily. Only the great Cedric Hardwicke emerges from this unscathed. Fleetwood is a snob, but one with an innate sense of civility who tries to walk a fine line between love of his King and love of his adopted home. He makes you feel Fleetwood's bitterness as his world crumbles around him, betrayed, through no real fault of his own, by the very people he thought of as his own.
Did anyone pick up on that Roger was gay? Fleetwood gives Jane the family's necklace because he knows Roger will never marry! And Tom-Cat Jefferson was SO effeminate, I was waiting for him to hook up with Roger! Boy Howdy!
As if he knew he was horribly miscast, Grant tears through this like he's on crack! Martha Scott struggles mightily. Only the great Cedric Hardwicke emerges from this unscathed. Fleetwood is a snob, but one with an innate sense of civility who tries to walk a fine line between love of his King and love of his adopted home. He makes you feel Fleetwood's bitterness as his world crumbles around him, betrayed, through no real fault of his own, by the very people he thought of as his own.
Did anyone pick up on that Roger was gay? Fleetwood gives Jane the family's necklace because he knows Roger will never marry! And Tom-Cat Jefferson was SO effeminate, I was waiting for him to hook up with Roger! Boy Howdy!