Perhaps I underestimate my readership. Perhaps most film lovers are better educated than I was a few years ago. Perhaps it is only my imagination that people don't make enough of an effort to see the movies of yesteryear. Perhaps I am mistaken in thinking that the best way to help people to understand Cary Grant's role in Father Goose is to use a title in which he is compared to a cardboard character from a space opera. Perhaps it should be the other way around, with people trying to explain Harrison Ford's obscure Han Solo to one another by comparing him to Grant's well-known Walter Eckland.
Perhaps things should be that way; but I suspect they aren't.
Like most people, I never truly learn anything until the lesson is made incredibly easy for me; and Turner Classic Movies has made the appreciation of Cary Grant extremely easy for me. I've even gone so far as to rediscover patience for such romantic comedies as Father Goose, which I heartily recommend for those who have lost all hope in Hollywood's ability to produce charming little date movies.
I liken Walter Eckland (Cary Grant) to Han Solo because he is a self-interested private citizen who is forced, through circumstances beyond his control, to become a reluctant military hero. Like another famous film character (Rick from Casablanca), Eckland has no interest in helping the Allied cause in World War II. "I made my peace with the world years ago," says Eckland to Admiral Houghton (Trevor Howard), the British naval officer who has requested his assistance. "Can I help it if the rest of you can't make peace with one another?"
Houghton pleads and reasons with Eckland to no avail before moving on to blackmail. He threatens to impound Eckland's ship (called The Millenium Falcon I think) unless Eckland agrees to become a coast watcher. Eckland's resistance to the idea is understandable, since becoming a coast watcher will A) interfere with his one-man shipping operation, B) force him to live all alone on an island with nothing to do but keep an eye out for Japanese planes and ships, and C) expose him to considerable danger should any passing Japanese decide to land on his island.
But since he can't afford to have his boat impounded, he agrees to become a coast watcher, thinking that he will be able to use his own boat to escape the island as soon as Houghton's back is turned. But Houghton (a very clever and intensely likable authority figure) has the foresight to stove in the the hull of Eckland's boat, stranding him on the island with only a seven-foot dinghy for transportation.
Houghton's assistant (a by-the-book little weasel who stands in as the indispensable unlikable authority figure) doesn't think that stranding Eckland on the island will do any good. He thinks that Eckland will disregard passing Japanese planes and ships out of spite (which Eckland, at this point in the film, fully intends to do). "You can lead a horse to water," says the weasel to Houghton, "but you can't make him drink."
"Oh he'll drink all right," says Houghton, "he'll drink." Here we encounter the first truly charming gag of the film, for it is only a matter of seconds before Eckland's voice blares in on the ship's radio: "Where's all the whiskey you said was on the island?"
Houghton explains that the whiskey bottles are hidden all over the island and that he will reveal their location, one at a time, for each confirmed report of enemy aircraft. He also gently reminds Eckland of the importance of identifying himself with his code name (Mother Goose), which Eckland refuses to do throughout the entire film (hence the title).
Despite diving planes firing machine guns and American submarines blowing up Japanese battleships, what follows is unrelentingly farcical. Houghton needs Eckland to rescue another coast watcher whose island has been invaded, but has to con Eckland into doing so by revealing the location of all of the whiskey on the island and making a lot of empty promises. When Eckland reaches the island, the coast watcher has already been killed. But he stumbles upon eight very unlikely females: Catherine Freneau (Leslie Caron), a French schoolteacher, and seven international schoolgirls. He has to transport them back to his own island in a dinghy that isn't really up to the task. And when he gets there, his reward is to have his freshly collected whiskey hidden by Freneau, who does not approve of his drinking in front of the children.
Critical viewers may find the ensuing scenes (in which Grant is gruffly charming in his interaction with the children) a bit too reminiscent of Houseboat, but despite a number of plot similarities (and the obvious plot device of a habitable boat), Father Goose has a completely different feel to it than houseboat. The sexual chemistry between Grant and Sophia Lauren in Houseboat is nothing short of sizzling (quite probably because--and I am grateful to MPTang for pointing this out to me--they were romantically involved at the time); in Father Goose Grant and Caron only go through the motions of flirting with one another, which is probably a good thing, since their relationship jerks forward through a series of implausible fits and starts.
The dialogue in the film is almost never expository and occasionally sparkles in a way that is becoming rarer and rarer. When one of the schoolgirls takes a fancy to Walter Eckland, his response is to frighten her away by pretending to return her ardor. "I've known things would work out for us since our eyes first met," he gasps after pressing her into a Tango-style dip. It's the sort of politically incorrect tactic that one would never be able to get away with in a film these days, much less in life, but it's nice to think back to the days when we were allowed to handle life's little problems by thinking on our feet instead of shrinking from the possibility of parental litigation.
The reader won't have to think very hard to come up with half a dozen comedic possibilities that arise from stranding a grizzled Cary Grant on an island with a diplomat's-daughter-turned-schoolmarm and seven schoolgirls. The writers of the screenplay didn't have to think very hard either, which is why they didn't. But the acting and the direction make the film a genuine delight. I would even go so far as to say that Father Goose includes Grant's single most winning facial expression. The first time Freneau slaps Eckland, he stymies her by slapping her back. A few scenes later, when she slaps him again, she is ready to be slapped back. And once Eckland slaps her, she slaps him again.
Grant does a marvelous job of conveying how profoundly unready Eckland was for his slap to be answered. With one look, Grant convinces us that the only proper response to Freneau's slap is for Eckland to marry her.
The script becomes exponentially more outrageous as the film draws to a close, but is convincingly sold by the extraordinary talent of Grant, Caron, and Howard.
And when it ends, you won't feel the way you usually do at the end of a romantic comedy: cheated. Even though I would ultimately have to categorize the film as a little bit on the cutesy, fluffy side of things, it's so much more watchable than most cutesy, fluffy movies that skipping it would be a mistake. Even if you don't subscribe to Turner Classic Movies, this one is worth a rental.
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