It's a film in where Cary Grant plays a extraordinary rich layabout.
Part of me wanted to call him a philanthropist but it turns out those people actually do something. This guy didn't.
In fact his life became so lazy and meaningless that he felt himself becoming sick and Ill by merely not exhibiting any energy.
And his doctor (a very unhappy and slightly unprofessional man) tells him that the only way he's going to rectify this problem is by getting away from his wealth and working himself to the bone below the poverty line for over a year.
I don't think that's technically accurate but I'm not a doctor from the 1930s nor am I a doctor today so maybe he has a point.
I know if I had ludacris amounts of money and absolutely no goals in my life I probably would have died years ago too.. Most lakliy after being crushed by a bookcase filled with useless junk or dying of a heart attack from eating different variety of hot dog every single day.
Oh and Twinkies. Cuz let's face it you got infinite well you don't care about diabetes so I just be sitting there eating twinkies and discount Oreos.
Yep worth Millions and still buying the discount Oreos, partly because they taste a bit more like breakfast cereal.
But we're not here to discuss my subpar eating habits.
We're here to see what happens to Old Cary Grant.
He decides to make a deal with his doctor. If he can stay on his own two feet for over a year working Oddball jobs and not committing himself to any of his old finances for personal gain then he'll be able to accept a firm handshake from his own doctor who refused to give him one earlier.
He thinks he's a spoiled brat just like half the other people he gets into his office complaining about lacking Ambitions because they have to much money. And if Cary Grant loses at this bed will give the doctor $50,000 for one of his charity organizations.
With that he sets out into the world desperately looking for a job in an able to find anything.
Turns out having absolutely no experience and no connection to the real world makes it a bit difficult to find work. I think the guys just tried the dockyards or maybe even a tenth agency you could probably get something.
But it turns out he was lucky enough to land the job is a Salesman trying to sell door to door oven appliances. He's horrible at it, not being able to sell a single one so he kind of alters his own deal with his doctor and decides to use some of his money not to give himself an edge in selling stoves.
So he can purposely run this show event for his company and offer free food to anybody interested in looking at the stoves. This gets the attention of a wholesaler who wants to buy over a hundred units from him.
Grant decides to take the offer up and then immediately leaves the company as he's becoming too big and too prominent in a job where he's supposed to be an everyday average man.
I was expecting the film to go down this pace a couple more times where he keeps going to little jobs and then improving them with his money but that doesn't happen. He only gets 2 other jobs in the hole film. One of which is a taxi service. Which he does buy up in the end but only so we can save this other guy he works with from getting sacked because this manager turns out to be something of a joke.
Really a fair bit of the film just turns into Carrie grounds character learning to be a more appreciative guy and giving out handouts to his friends when they ask especially given that he's so high up in finance.
Like deciding to repay a friend of his by giving him a thousand pounds after he look like to give his friend that money from a previous Point.
Sounds kind of pretentious and weird but once again the guy is worth millions so you'd think he'd be able to help a friend out.
Or there's the other part of the movie where these weird thugs decide to move into his house by manipulating his Butler.
Because his Butler's become so disinterested with his life now that he's literally not doing anything that he's taken to drinking whiskey and sitting in his room all day.
So these other shysters come into the picture and try to screw Cary Grant's main character out of his money by hiring the taxi driver that looks like Cary Grant (because he is that guy). And then trying to get him to forward to cheque to the bank to steal a boat-load of money. Which it turns out was this weird scheme Carrie's character concocted in the first place as he suspected this might happen.
This whole movies full of weird little moments like this with odd little Side Stories and a bunch of awkward editing that kind of make the film feel a little disconnected. The only thing that kind of works is the romance between Cary Grant and Mary Brian or they kind of fall for each other over time because she's a basic Working Girl who just wants to live the secure life but even then it's not greatly put together.
The romance is okay but it could have been longer.
Would have been nice to see these two actually develop a character overtime or have her question how he seems to be able to get new jobs with relative ease or how these jobs seem to get linked up with rich people or mysterious Financial circumstances.
But instead we just have her finding out at the very end that he's worth millions and she seems to be fine with this.
Not overly excited, not annoyed that he didn't mention this to her or anything else. With only an hour to go you really have to cram things in. And I feel like this film would have done better with a bit more time. Maybe not much, a good 20 minutes might have done wonders. But this is what we're left with and it's okay.
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