Browse: Home / Year of the Month: Joseph Finn on Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright
  • Disney Byways: Park Incidental Music
  • The Friday Article Roundup: Let's Get Weird
  • The High and Low of Flaherty's 20s: NANOOK and MOANA
  • New Hollywood Got Old

Year of the Month: Joseph Finn on Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

Posted By Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott on September 24, 2018 in Features | 16 Responses

I try to come up with some sort of theme for each of these articles I write for Year of the Month, I really do; where it fits into the time period or has something to say about different eras of film.  But this movie defeats that sort of preconceived notion. I could, I suppose, come up with something about how it’s part of postwar USA, or how it shadows the beginning of the flight to the suburbs, but I just feel like this is where I drop all that and talk about how much of a delight this movie is.

 

This is Cary Grant (Jim Blanding) and Myrna Loy (Muriel Blanding) at the height of their powers in a story about how they, as a married couple, living in a tiny three-bedroom apartment in Manhattan that they share with their teen daughters, bag all that to move into a dream house in Connecticut.  Naturally, everything goes wrong, from finding the house they’ve bought needs to be demolished to water table problems to cost overruns. This is something we’ve all seen in various movies (I keep thinking back to The Money Pit, but younger folks might go with the loose remake Are We Done Yet?) and it’s all in the execution, something this movie has in spades outsides of one weird little misstep.

 

Thankfully, one of the people involved in that misstep is also the absolute delight of this movie.  Grant and Loy are top-level here, but what really elevates Mr. Blandings is their friend and lawyer Bill Cole, played by Melvyn Douglas.   Every bad decision they make, he is there to make things right — and even better, to deliver wry commentary on the proceedings.  He works with the script by long-time writing duo Melvin Frank and Norman Panama like Hendrix playing a Fender; it’s really a joy to see.  I’m admittedly a sucker for great character actors stealing scenes and this one is a delight; how someone can steal a movie from Grant and Loy in 1948 is a bit of a wonder, but Douglas does it with panache and joy.

 

Unfortunately, he’s also dragged into that one misstep.  There’s a jealousy side plot late in the film where you find that Muriel dated Bill as well back in college.  It really comes out of nowhere, acts as a two-second roadblock and does nothing to advance the plot at all. I’m all for a good romantic subplot, but this one is completely unnecessary especially in a  movie where it’s clear that the Blandings are really into each other but just dealing with the stress of house buying and moving.

 

Now here is where I’m going to pull some Stephen King on y’all.  

 

Mr. King, in his excellent survey of horror movies and literature, Danse Macabre, has some really interesting things to say about the terrors of real estate (at this point he’s specifically talking about The Amityville Horror and The House Next Door).  For many people, buying/renovating/moving into a house is one of the most stressful things they will ever do.  King is obviously talking about horror literature here, but this is worth considering even in a comedy like this. People just plain go nutty when it comes to houses and that’s ripe for both horror and for comedy.

 

Mr. Blandings isn’t apparently one of the better-remembered titles for Grant and Loy these days, which seems odd.  They’re both appealing as hell in this, Melvyn Douglas is simply killing it here every time he’s on screen and there’s also a fantastic couple of scenes from Harry Shannon as a local well digger.  1948 is a great year for drama and comedy, but this is a comedy that you shouldn’t let slip away from you.

 

Oh, and Myrna Loy picking out wall colors will never not be great.

 

Posted in Features | Tagged 1948, cary grant, Comedy, Joseph Finn, Melvyn Douglas, myrna loy, year of the month

About the Author

Sam “Burgundy Suit” Scott

Sam is a features writer for Looper and studied writing under Kevin Wilson at Sewanee: the University of the South. He’s been a staff writer for The Solute since its launch in 2014 and editor of the Year of the Month series since 2017.

I don’t know how to put this, but he’s kind of a big deal. He has many leather-bound books and his apartment smells of rich mahogany.

Now on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=23744950

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

Related Posts

Decade of the Month: Sunil Patel on SHERLOCK, JR.→

Decade of the Month: SPEEDY and the Fine Art of the Action Comedy→

Walt, barely old enough to be her fatherDisney Byways: Alice Comedies→

Year of the Month: Désirée I. Guzzetta on the Infectious Complexity of THE HOST→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    30651 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    26383 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    18883 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    17643 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Yvonne, or: CASABLANCA In One Character and Three Scenes

    9536 views / Posted August 21, 2014
  • The two Charlies

    Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright

    May 21, 2022 / Gillianren
  • Because people will take pictures of everything

    Disney Byways: Park Incidental Music

    May 20, 2022 / Gillianren
  • Tunnel vision.

    The Friday Article Roundup: Let’s Get Weird

    May 20, 2022 / The Ploughman
  • Flaherty of the Slightly Lower North.

    The High and Low of Flaherty’s 20s: NANOOK and MOANA

    May 19, 2022 / The Ploughman
  • It's all art

    New Hollywood Got Old

    May 18, 2022 / Gillianren

Last Tweets

  • Attention Must Be Paid: Teresa Wright - https://t.co/vbiIwSb677, 3 hours ago
  • Disney Byways: Park Incidental Music - https://t.co/RFbAVEsBBN, May 21
  • The Friday Article Roundup: Let’s Get Weird - https://t.co/wSqIzaXLpE, May 20

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!