The clumsily contrived "Big Brown Eyes" manages to hold some interest because of a fast pace and the magnetism of Cary Grant and Joan Bennett. She plays a wisecracking manicurist (too much a gum-chewing replica of her character in "Me and My Gal" opposite Spencer Tracy four years earlier) who engages in mutual flirtation with Grant's police detective. The plot involves a slippery jewel theft ring run by Walter Pidgeon (who would team wonderfully with Bennett 5 years later in Fritz Lang's "Man Hunt") that the cops just can't seem to crack. Bennett, driven to inexplicable frenzies of jealousy over Grant's innocent professional attentions to an older woman (Marjorie Gateson) whose diamonds have been stolen, bangs him over the head with a tray of utensils, is fired for bad behavior and promptly gets a job as a reporter with the town's newspaper. Overnight she is writing front page copy and leading the investigation into the jewel theft ring. Further absurdities take place until the predictable ending. Nowhere is there any reference to the anatomical features of the title, though one would assume they belong to the leading man, Cary Grant. The lack of connection between title and content is the perfect indicator of a tossed-together script. This Raoul Walsh-directed feature does what it can to supply action and speed and colorful incidentals in place of logic and wit and real dramatic substance. But despite the star power it can go only so far with such thin material.
Review of Big Brown Eyes
