I Was a Male War Bride

source: I Was a Male War Bride

This isn't Hawks' funniest comedy or his most meaningful, but it's clever and amusing, and gets moreso as it moves along. The repartee isn't as consistently as witty as in some of Hawks' other comedies, a pale shade of what goes on in, say, "Bringing Up Baby," or "Monkey Business." Some of it sounds adolescent. Grant finds himself in humiliating situations and people giggle at him and ask, "What are you doing up there, Henry?" Several times someone remarks, "Poor Henry." And it doesn't help much that the Germany we see is pretty much blasted by the war. The dust of former explosions seems to hang in the air. It may be Heidelberg but without the Philosophenweg, and there is no Student Prince. Grant is no Henri Rochard and it's hard to laugh when he stumbles over the pronunciation of "Massachussetts" or mistakes "hitch" for "itch." The situations themselves vary in their comedic value. Again, some are silly, as when Grant and Sheridan are about to go over a waterfall. And some are straight out of Laurel and Hardy, as when Grant climbs a pole at night to read the sign at the top and the sign says, "Wet Paint." But that's about the extent of the qualifications. This is an enjoyable comedy. It starts off a bit slowly but by the climax it has reached the top of the pole. Sheridan is always a likable, unpretentious actress. But absolutely nobody could carry off a movie like this except Cary Grant. He was the best light comedian of his time and here he's at the top of his form. The gags thrown at him are sometimes ridiculous -- the business of the protruding hands when he's trying to sleep in an awkward position -- but he pulls it all off with no loss of dignity. If you want a thought experiment to demonstrate what I mean, try imagining this movie with John Wayne (another Hawks favorite) in the principal role. And the gags ARE often amusing, sometimes very amusing. The plot picks up speed after Grant and Sheridan are married. Grant wanders the streets in a state that in the anthropological study of ritual is called "liminal". He is a male war bride, caught between two legitimate statuses, unable to fully occupy either of them. And you have to hand to to not only Grant but Hawks for tackling a comedy about bureaucratic red tape. An unpromising prospect if there ever was one. Hawks brings to every scene his usual flair for improvisational sounding crazy exchanges, even if they don't measure up to his best. Nobody but Hawks would toss in Sheridan's confusing Grant before their marriage with some mock misunderstanding about the Chinese tea-drinking ceremony. And nobody would bother to have one of the characters say, "Good luck to you." There's a confident, relaxed quality in the movie which can only be blamed on Grant and Hawks. Probably the funniest scene is towards the end, as the couple attempt to board a ship for the USA. Kenneth Toby as the sailor, "Red," only has a few scenes with Grant but they are as funny as anything Hawks has put on screen. Grant: "The army understood and they passed me." Toby: "Oh, the army understood and they passed you. You hear that, Joe? The army understood and they passed him. This is the NAVY, Bud." And Toby's final line, after Grant's gender has been discovered, "Come on. Come along, Flo," while crooking his finger at Grant.

This is a strange one. Plenty of great laughs but in between a lot of nothing. The slapstick is well set up and works perfectly, especially the awning sequence in Sheridan's bedroom. However, the chemistry between Cary Grant and Anne Sheridan is pretty much non- existent, and Cary is unusually mean spirited in this film until the second half. I know they're supposed to hate each other and then fall in love but it seems like there's too much venom between these two to ever end up in marriage. Plus Sheridan's not that appealing. I wonder how the film would have played with a more dynamic actress, say Katherine Hepburn,Lauren Bacall or Jean Arthur.

As a fan of Cary Grant's work in such comedies as Philadelphia Story and Bringing Up Baby, I was thoroughly disappointed by this movie. It has a few shining, laugh out loud moments in the beginning and in the well known cross-dressing segment near the ending, but I found the middle to be long, slow and not very entertaining. The plot wasn't very interesting and Grant's adventures became repetitive and boring. Also, Grant isn't very convincing as a Frenchman, and I kept forgetting why he had trouble getting into the States in the first place. If you have trouble sitting through slow-moving movies, I would definitely not recommend this. However, on the opposite side, there are a few funny moments, a cute romantic plot, and, of course, Cary Grant. See it if you wish, but be warned not to have too high of expectations.

Captain Henri Rochard is assigned to work with Lieutenant Catherine Gates on a very serious mission. Tho initial problems between the two are rife, it's not long before the two of them fall in love and hastily arrange to get married. However a ream of bureaucratic red tape ensures the couple can not be together and with Catherine set to go back to America, there may be only one option, Henri will have to invoke a War Brides Clause in army regulations, with some rather zany results. I Was a Male War Bride is not even close to being a poor film, it has many moments of hilarity and contains a last twenty minutes to savour, it is however un-fulfilling as a comedy whole and sags on far too many occasions. How much of this is down to the chemistry of the leads and off camera illness problems is open for debate, for both Cary Grant {Rochard} and Ann Sheridan {Gates} both suffered ill health during the shoot, while director Howard Hawks himself was to succumb to being unwell at an inappropriate juncture. Tho Ava Gardner was originally wanted for the role of Gates {something i feel would have been excellent, if still wishing for a more comedic actress}, Hawks went for the more brisk acting of Sheridan, tho a fine actress, she seems wrong here, not quite coping with the comedy interplay with her leading man, almost missing the comedic beat as it were. Grant himself was said to have praised the picture quite often, but he does look weary and often appearing to be on auto pilot during the more laborious sequences. The film has many supporters, but i can't in my wildest dreams term this as a screwball comedy, perhaps i expect better from Grant and Hawks?, i mean after His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby and to a lesser extent, Monkey Business, my expectation for this one was always likely to be high, and of course viewing Sheridan as a great dramatic actress was meaning i viewed this one with suspicion from the off. I honestly feel the last twenty minutes saves the picture from being very average, the script perks up, and naturally a bit of gender confusion always raises a titter, tho the sight of Grant in drag looks more akin to Frankenstein's monster than the boys from Some Like It Hot!. It's more than worth a watch and it has guaranteed laughs dotted throughout, it just falls some way short of being a comedy classic in this viewers humble opinion. 6/10

In doing this film Howard Hawks was greatly influenced by his own Bringing Up Baby. Certainly Cary Grant had never been that henpecked on the screen since that classic film. And Ann Sheridan's WAC character was certainly based on Katharine Hepburn's in Bringing Up Baby. I wouldn't be surprised if this film wasn't originally offered to Hepburn. I Was a Male War Bride divides neatly in two parts. In fact I'm convinced that a great deal was eliminated from the beginning because the film seems to start in the middle of the story. When it begins Sheridan, a member of the U.S. Women's Army Corps and Grant a French Army officer already know each other and well. Sheridan pushes Grant around the same way Hepburn did in Bringing Up Baby. After a whole lot of verbal banter with Sheridan taking the lead in it, they decide they're in love and want to be married. But we're dealing with the army and there is a law about American soldiers taking foreign brides while on occupation duty. But no one had the foresight to realize that WACS may find husbands as well. The second half of the film are the frustrations in dealing with all the red tape. It may seem ridiculous, but we're not only dealing with bureaucratic minds, but military bureaucratic minds. That mindset operates in every army on the planet. What's obvious to us, these folks can't or won't grasp. Sheridan and Grant team well together. There are no other good secondary characters developed, most of the time it's Grant and Sheridan on the screen together. Sheridan does admirably as a Katharine Hepburn substitute. You see I Was A Male War Bride and you can understand the military's opposition to gays in their ranks. They don't take to change easily and in fact do it worse than most segments of society.

In this zany comedy, Frenchman Grant is designated as American Sheridan's "bride" by the Army so he can accompany her to America after marrying her. Although the whole film is quite enjoyable, the early parts are the best, featuring the witty banter between Grant and Sheridan, who claim to hate each other. The scene in the hotel where Grant gets locked in Sheridan's room is particularly funny. Hawks, one of the masters of screwball comedy, deftly manages the shenanigans. Other than not even attempting a French accent, Grant is perfectly cast as the hapless bride. Sheridan is marvelous as usual as the kind of woman any man would gladly do whatever it takes to get.

Delightful if far-fetched comedy, with Cary Grant at his best -- and, surprisingly, Ann Sheridan matching him joke for joke.

This is a very foolish picture. Cary Grant and Ann Sheridan are assigned to go on a mission to locate a black market gentleman. You'd think there would be some intrigue there. Instead, they locate an Edmund Gwenn look alike who is off to France. From two people who can't stand each other, they soon fall in love and wed. To say that they encounter bureaucratic red tape is to put it mildly. The only way that Grant can come to the U.S. (He is a Frenchman in this film despite the fact that he exhibits no accent) is to travel with Sheridan as a bride.Isn't this just plain ridiculous? Where is the hilarity here? When the two finally are allowed to board the boat, we could have had much fun had Grant been allowed to pursue his way as a female. Instead, all is forgiven and the film ends.

A remarkably un-funny "comedy" that seems to lose its way almost from the beginning. Much of the so-called humor centers on the bureaucracy and rigidity of the American military in post-WW2 Europe -- e.g., no place for a male "bride" to sleep because the military was used only to male soldiers marrying, or only the woman can drive the motorcycle because rules say you have to have been checked out for motorcycle driving and Grant's character isn't. I can see where this might have been amusing in its day for an audience of ex-GI's who could laugh and say "yes, yes, that's really how it was" but that humor of recognition ages quickly. But it's not just the age/context of the movie that makes it not work. Cary Grant is clearly meant to be playing one of his patented "slow burn/sarcastic boyfriend" types. But here it just doesn't work --- I think it's because he's given little to work with --- Sheridan's character is not wacky enough to pull the audience along with Grant's frustration. In fact, most of the things that she does that allegedly irritate Grant are quite reasonable (taking care of performing his "mission" in the first segment when he's unavailable, or working through the complexities of the military red-tape in order to make their marriage happen.) If anything, it is Grant who is the screwball -- which may be the central problem. The film's pacing also seems very off in many places -- jokes that should be punchy are drawn out and slow (and therefore not funny). All in all, a big disappointment.