PRIMROSE PATH (1940)

Twenty-nine year-old teenager Ginger Rogers has a family ain't nobody jealous of.  Her mom's a hooker with a good heart, her grandma's a hooker with a heart made of fossilized rat poison, her little sister is a hooker in-training and her dad's a pants-shitting drunkard.  She lives in a rundown shack with her shitty family and she doesn't go to school since nobody makes her.  One day she decides to get some crabs (the crustacean kind) for her shitfaced dad, so she hitches a ride down to the beach from a kindly old man who offers her some free food at his hamburger stand.  The cook (McCrea) takes a liking to her and she (secretly) to him.  Things happen and they hook up, but she lied about her family.  What's gonna happen when he finds out the truth?

Ginger Rogers ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for the same years KITTY FOYLE directed by Frank Capra, but according to Joel McCrea: "I think they really gave it to her for PRIMROSE PATH but they were afraid of the subject matter in those days.  Even Frank Capra said it was a better film than KITTY FOYLE."  That's very interesting.  I haven't seen KITTY FOYLE, but I was surprised at Rogers outstanding performance in PRIMROSE PATH especially when you compare it to her terrible performance in 1942's ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON.  It's asking a lot of an 29-year-old actress to play a teenager in a serious role, but Rogers pulls it off.  Yeah, she looks too old, but her portrayal all the way down to the smallest mannerisms was spot on.  Very impressive.  The story on the other hand is interesting, but there wasn't enough tension and the abrupt ending was completely unsatisfying. 

Worth a watch for fans of McCrea and Rogers, but overall I was hoping for better.

ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON (1942)

Five years after making one of my favorite movies of all time (THE AWFUL TRUTH), Leo McCarey and Cary Grant team up once again to make this wildly uneven and depressing romantic comedy/spy caper set in pre-World War II Europe.  Radio broadcaster Grant is working on a hot story about a Austrian Baron (and his gold digging American wife Ginger Rogers) who's going around Europe and wherever they go, soon falls to the Nazis.  Sounds hilarious!  Anyway, Grant falls for Ginger Rogers (who is somehow too stupid to realize that her husband is a top ranked Nazi!) and naturally she falls in love with him.  Trouble is she's married to one of Hitler's most loyal henchmen.  All kinds of funny stuff happens like assassination attempts, a successful assassination, city's getting bombed, a man turning his wife over to the Nazis, Jews fleeing, children crying, a guy drowning and Grant and Rogers getting thrown into a prison camp for Jews.  It's a feel good laugh riot!

I'm sure there's fans of this movie, but I found ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON painful to get through.  The pace was slow, the story was all over the place, Ginger Rogers acting was terrible, hell even Grant's wasn't anything to brag about and the patriotism!  Oh my god!  At one point Rogers and another actor actually raised their right hand and recited the Pledge of Allegiance!!!  If that's not enough to turn you away then go for it.  Maybe you'll like it.  As for me, I hope I never see this propaganda misfire ever again.