Dreamboat

Imagine the surprise when the faculty and students of a small college discover that a prim and proper English professor was in fact a silent screen star. It's discovered when Clifton Webb's old co-star, Ginger Rogers is hosting a program showing some of their old films. The man she calls her Dreamboat.

I suppose it's hard to imagine for today's audience a television in its infancy. But in 1952 it still was and a good way to fill up a lot of programming time was to broadcast old films. Even the silent ones. In my youth WOR TV in New York City was an RKO station and had the entire RKO library available to it. In the infant days of that station their programming was mostly old films as I remember.

Anyway Clifton Webb is quite content to be out of the Hollywood scene and he's quite annoyed that his past has been resurrected. He and daughter Anne Francis have law suit on their minds.

It's a dated story, but the script is quite good with some nice witty lines for Webb and Rogers to toss back and forth at each other. Among the supporting cast, the biggest kudos should go to Elsa Lanchester the prim and proper college president who discovers she's got a genuine sex object on her faculty and wants to do something about it.

Former silent film star Gloria Marlowe (Ginger Rogers) is hosting a show on TV that features her old movies. This causes problems for her former costar, Thornton Sayre (Clifton Webb), now a respected college professor. Sayre, who was known as Bruce Blair during his acting days, sets out with his bookish daughter (Anne Francis) to stop the movies from being shown.

What a treat this is. One of those movies you never hear about but is just great fun. Clifton Webb is terrific, throwing out one pithy line after another. I'm kind of surprised Ginger did this part, given that it dates her in a way most actresses of the time wouldn't want any part of. Actually, it makes her seem older than her real age. Props to her for not caring. You sure as heck wouldn't have caught Joan Crawford admitting to being 40 -- even when she was 60! She looks amazing, though, and is very funny. It's one of her best post-1940s comedic roles. Anne Francis is cute as a button and holds her own quite well. Supporting cast includes a wonderful Elsa Lanchester and an early role for Jeffrey Hunter. The fake silent movies are hilarious. It's especially funny seeing Webb channel Douglas Fairbanks in one of his action scenes. It's an underrated gem of a comedy that provides some smart commentary on celebrity and satire on television ("The phenomenon of television -- it encourages people who dwell under the same roof to ignore each other completely"). Definitely a movie you should check out if you get the chance, especially if you're a fan of Clifton Webb or Ginger Rogers.

Clifton Webb is in top form here as a college professor who starred in old silent films. His past resurfaces when the old movies are shown on TV and he becomes the "Dreamboat."

This is a deftly amusing film in which Hollywood is poking fun at the silliness of its arch-rival of the 1950s, TV. It also pokes fun at its own early days of silent melodrama.

The film is an enjoyable experience overall, but especially delicious is Webb as the prim professor who is also the soap-opera film star of old Hollywood.

Clifton Webb at his most stuff-shirtish is the life of this takeoff on swashbucklers and television commercials. Even today these eerily seem to foreshadow the commercials still shown (only usually in color.) with their pointless animations and annoying voices uttering gross exaggerations.

Ginger Rogers, here without Fred Astaire, proves herself quite a good farceuse as Webb's nemesis, Anne Francis is good as Webb's daughter and Jeffrey Hunter, some years before playing Jesus in "King of Kings" (also known humorously as "I was a Teenage Jesus" because of his youthful looks, even if he was close to the right age) played opposite Miss Francis.

Other reliable character players included Elsa Lanchester, Fred Clark and Ray Collins.

The film was brilliantly directed by Claude Binyon from his own sharp script based on a story by John D. Weaver.

This delightful spoof is pure joy, elevated by a spanking story (by John D. Weaver) deft direction and scripting (by Claude Binon) and cracking cast (headed by Clifton Webb and Ginger Rogers).

What's great is that this comedy doesn't pretend to be anything more than what it is: an amusing trifle with nifty observations about the film, television and radio industries.

One of our favorites, it's also to date (2004) not available on vhs, dvd, or shown on tv. Production Studio Twentieth Century Fox must know something we don't.