Houseboat

How can you not love Cary Grant! Handsome, suave, debonair and every girls dreamboat! He is in his element here as a father of three children who have lost their mother in a tragic car accident. He is reunited with the beautiful Sophia Lauren whom he fell in love with in Italy while filming another movie. Ending up on a diapliated houseboat with 3 children he is trying to bond with and the beautiful young woman who is acting as the maid while hiding her true identity is a delightful treat not to be missed. You can see how much he still loves her in every glance, every interaction which makes the movie extra special!

Love this movie. Had to get it for my collection so I can watch whenever I want. Great stars long gone. Worth the value and can watch over and over.

Good decent movie funny like it

Imported this Kino Lorber release (from a 6k scan of the original camera negative) to replace my old DVD. The film looks absolutely fantastic, and the sound is pretty good too. Sadly, you'll need a multi-region player to enjoy this US-disc, as it's region locked (like all Kino Lorber's releases), but if you have one this is a very fine family film, that even my 2 sons of 25 & 21, respectively, found very enjoyable, as did my wife; which was good as I bought it for her as a birthday present. Edith Head makes sure the actors are dressed immaculately, when they need to be; and did I mention: Sophia looks absolutely stunning! What's not to like?

The trailer from Paramount touts this 1958 film as “the most wonderful romantic comedy...ever!” Not quite, but, predictable as it is, the movie has its charms, thanks to its stars. At age 54 Cary Grant had his urbane, debonair and unflappable persona perfected. Here that persona is put to the test of parenthood. He is a government lawyer named Tom Winters whose ex-wife has died in a car crash and who now finds himself, after being absent for several years, thrust into the unfamiliar role of father to their three resentful kids (Mimi Gibson as Elizabeth, Charles Herbert as Robert, and Paul Peterson as David; Peterson was a veteran of “The Mickey Mouse Club” and was about to co-star on TV in “The Donna Reed Show”). Robert is the surliest of the trio: “I hate everybody, I hate everybody in the whole wide world!” The kids would prefer living with their Aunt Carolyn (Martha Hyer), or their grandparents, but Tom insists they belong with him (“I don’t want my kids parceled out like cabbages.”) Tom takes the kids to a small hotel room in Washington, D.C. where he’ll have to sleep on the couch for a while. After an outdoor concert, Robert runs off and soon meets another, older runaway, Cinzia Zaccardi (Sophia Loren), daughter of the concert’s orchestra conductor (Eduardo Ciannelli). (His manager, by the way, is played by Werner Klemperer, seven years before co-starring as Colonel Klink on TV’s “Hogan’s Heroes.”) She’s running away from her father’s autocratic ways, looking to spread her wings in America and live a little. (Loren was 24 when the film came out. She was not unknown to American audiences, having already co-starred with Grant and Frank Sinatra in “The Pride and the Passion” and opposite John Wayne in “Legend of the Lost.”) Cinzia and Robert bond at a carnival where Cinzia cheats at a ring-toss game to win a new harmonica for him. When she returns the boy to the hotel, Tom, not knowing anything about her, offers her a job as housekeeper/babysitter (after she first slaps him for implying she’s, shall we say, a woman of the streets). She declines but, after another argument with her father, she accepts. (When she tells her father she’ll get a job and support herself, he retorts, “I have given you the finest education in all of Europe. You do not know how to do anything!” She tops him with, “Then perhaps, Father, I will run for the congress.”) Needing more room for his brood, Tom agrees to live in a “guest house” of Aunt Carolyn’s (a two-story domicile being moved by truck to a site on her property—her family is clearly well-off. Disaster strikes on their way to the country when the house, being moved by Angelo Donatello (Harry Guardino) gets stuck on some railroad tracks and is demolished by a passenger train. To make up for this oops moment, Angelo offers them the temporary shelter of a houseboat on the Potomac. Said houseboat is basically a sea-going slum, but the adversity of fixing it up helps bond the family. There’s also the problem that housekeeper Cinzia doesn’t know how to cook. Or do laundry. (Seeing Cary Grant in a laundromat between gossipy women is a hoot.) Angelo has some smarmy feelings for Cinzia, referring to her as an “Italian pastry,” but quickly takes himself out of the running when the subject of matrimony comes up. Aunt Carolyn, meanwhile, has eyes for brother-in-law Tom, now that her own marriage is on the rocks. Little Elizabeth has been cuddling with Tom during stormy nights and soon suspects her father and Cinzia might be falling in love. Thinking she might be evicted from papa’s bunk, she asks Cinzia, “Listen, about married people. Do they sleep in the same bed together?” Cinzia: “In America, sometimes. In Italy, always.” Which is about as risqué as a 1958 American film got. There are two songs by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans in the film. One, “Bing! Bang! Bong!” is sung several times too often by Loren, but the other, “Almost In Your Arms” was nominated for a Best Song Oscar (“You’re near/That moment so dear/I’m almost in your arms/One sigh/One word and I/Will rush to your embrace./Say that certain word/Sigh that certain sigh....”) It’s heard while Tom and Cinzia are slow dancing at a Country Club dance, sung by pop star Sam Cooke (who is heard but not seen; was the Country Club restricted? At least he got screen credit). The song lost to Lerner and Loewe’s title song from “Gigi.” The script, co-written by director Melville Shavelson and Jack Rose, was nominated for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, but lost to “The Defiant Ones.” (Shavelson would direct Loren again two years later in “It Started In Naples,” with Clark Gable.) Martha Hyer was nominated that year for Best Supporting Actress, but in a different movie, “Some Came Running,” from MGM; Wendy Heller won for “Separate Tables.” The film comes with Closed Captioning. The only extra on the DVD besides the theatrical trailer is a photo gallery of black-and-white publicity stills and lobby cards.

Great movie family oriented

It’s a classic. Enough said!

Grant and Loren together what else needs to be said.

Film molto carino con Cary Grant e Sophia Loren. L'edizione DVD inglese offre anche l'audio italiano con doppiaggio d'epoca. Al momento pare che si tratti dell'unica versione di questo film sul mercato con audio italiano.

Funny Movie 🍿 get your popcorn ready ... It's a Good One. Thank you

Great family show

A must watch old movie=Virendra

Diese Hollywood-Schmonzette hat zwar Jahrzehnte auf dem Buckel, ist aber trotzdem ziemlich witzig. Ein Regierungsbeamter in Washington muss sich nach dem Tod seiner von ihm getrenntlebenden Ehefrau um die drei gemeinsamen Kinder kümmern - und ist erst mal ziemlich hilflos. Zufällig kommt die Tochter eines Stardirigenten vorbei und kümmert sich. Dass der Film bis heute gut funktioniert, liegt an dem guten Drehbuch mit vielen herrlichen Gags. Vor allem an einem bestens aufgelegten Cary Grant, der sich für keinen Witz auf seine Kosten zu schade ist. Das Zusammenspiel mit Sofia Loren funktioniert hervorragend, sie darf ein bisschen tanzen und singen, nimmt sich ansonsten aber sehr zurück. Außerdem sind die drei mitspielenden Kinder einfach entzückend, ihre Rollen haben großen Anteil daran, dass die Geschichte nie in Gefühlsduselei kippt. Die Bild- und Tonqualität der DVD ist überdurchschnittlich gut.