Cary Grant, de l'autre côté du miroir

I agree with the other reviewer that it is perfectly extraordinary in 2017 that a documentary of Cary Grant should fail not only to discuss in any way his reltionship with Randolph Scott, with whom he lived, more or less as a couple, for more than ten years but does not even once mention Scott's name. While spotting "gay" tendencies in figures of the past can be a very tedious sport, there is not really any serious doubt about Grant's bisexuality and a biography that ignores it, while talking extensively of his difficulty in discovering who he was, is ridiculous. Had the film been made fifty years ago, one would understand, but in 2017 it is almost beyond belief. It is not as if any of it makes one jot of difference to the fact that he was a marvellous actor! or for that matter detracts in any way from his stature as a person. Even though one appreciates that the omission is out of respect for the views of Grant's daughter, who appears in the film, It is still crass dishonesty on the part of the film-maker and rather foolish jealous denial of the past on the part of the descendant.

Lets get the first thing out of the way. Cary Grant is one of the performers I admire greatly. I have not researched his career in depth but I was aware of his real name. Learning about his troubled childhood and his relationship with his mother and women was enlightening. I was shocked to find out he used LSD, under medical supervision, to better understand himself and was more shocked to find out about his weaknesses. He did turn those weaknesses into a strength though and became a better performer by understanding himself.

Recommended viewing for his fans and amateur shrinks.

The Cary Grant/Archibald Leach story is a treasure trove almost impossible to fail at. In fact it's such a compelling story that despite the failings of the director one does stay through to the end watching this tale. And personally I don't have a problem with missing bits of the story like other reviewers do or with the somber tone of the story. The somber tone, is an integral part of Cary's life, and as long as the director tells the story I think he does have the right to omit parts that don't fit into the story he wishes to tell.

On the other hand I did find his pretentiousness very annoying. Having such a wonderful source material the director Mark Kidel had to show how he entered Cary Grant's mind and deciphered his innermost secrets. So he keeps on showing us scenes from Grant's therapeutic sessions with LSD pretending he knows what Grant saw there. It's groundless, pretentious and completely unnecessary for the story itself. But it's being repeated over and over again, and I found it to be detrimental to the movie

The main selling points for this doco are clips from Cary Grant's own home movies and excerpts from his unpublished memoir. But the home movies are are unremarkable at best, dull at worst. And the memoir extracts seem more like Grant's attempts to conceal, rather than reveal himself. The documentary accepts at face value what Grant says about his various marriages, while never even addressing all the indications that Grant was gay - not the plain fact that he shared a house and his life with Randolph Scott for 12 years, nor the revelations in Orry-Kelly's unpublished memoir about Grant's gay relationships in his New York years. At the same time this film attempt to analyse Grant's screen persona through the prism of the actor's private life - incomplete and questionable though the picture they've presented is. It's all highly dubious, and does no justice to either the actor or the man.

Disappointing dreck. Lots of half baked theories backed up by little more than embarrassing film clips used in the most ludicrous metaphorical fashion. The musical score wouldn't have made it onto a B-film melodrama. Might have been nice if they identified the people we see on screen. Only Judy Balaban is introduced. Watching pictures of San Simeon probably taken by Grant. Of course they're not identified and were most likely taken a decade before he met Betsy Drake whose segment they feature in. Really useless nonsense.