Cary Grant: A Celebration of a Leading Man

I liked the documentary, watched only one of his films, and I don't remember ... I intend to follow the entire collection available on Amazon Prime ...

This Gene Feldman directed documentary on Cary Grant shows us Grant's Archie Leach origins as a Bristol vaudeville player, to reveal the transformation from acrobat to Hollywood romantic comedienne. However, beneath this surface change are only hinted at disturbances - Grant's sexual ambiguity, the effect of having an institutionalised mentally ill mother, and his relationship with women, involving his many wives and an observed wariness of the female sex.

The documentary covers Grant's career highlights, noting film milestones like She Done Him Wrong, Sylvia Scarlett, Suspicion, and North by Northwest, his perceived failure as a character actor, and tells of the anarchy behind the scenes of The Awful Truth, which was said to be made without a script. It also recognises Grant as one of the earliest freelance independent actors, a decision made to get out of his Paramount contract in the late 1930's, way before the studio studio collapsed in the 1950's.

Technically, we see Grant in Paramount publicity shorts, some titles are only represented by trailers, and there is even footage of Grant beseiged by paparazzi.

No revelations. Only touching testimonies , the pieces of a biography special for the fights defining it and hommage to memory of a great actor who, behind his smile and splendid charme defines, in very precise manner, his absolutely impressive career. Nothing new but touching for the meet with great parteners of him and for their living emotion behind words. For scenes from films and for the honest , correct job of director.

Cary Grant: A Celebration of a Leading Man (1988)

*** (out of 4)

This documentary runs less than a hour and tries to cover the life and career of screen legend Cary Grant. Through film clips and interviews, we trace Grant's life from his early days of going by the name Archie Leach to various personal issues including his mother pretty much going crazy and giving him away, which turned the boy to the stage. We learn about his quick rise to fame in Hollywood and how he pretty much never lost that popularity. There's certainly nothing too ground-breaking about this documentary but there are a few major reasons to watch it, which I'll get to in a second. Basically this documentary just goes through various parts of Grant's filmmography and gives quick details about the movie and if anything special was going on in the star's life during this time. All of this is stuff most people will probably already know but what makes this film so special is the fact that it features numerous familiar names who actually worked with Grant and knew him. These type of interviews are really priceless and we get comments from the likes of: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Leslie Caron, Richard Brooks, Ralph Bellamy, Stanley Donen, Eva Marie Saint, Stanley Kramer and Deborah Kerr. Just seeing all of these famous faces and hearing their stories first hand certainly makes this film worth watching.