Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)

It’s 1938 and an American with a past (Ginger Rogers) is engaged to an Austrian Barron, who may or may not be a Nazi (he may). Newsman Patrick (Cary Grant) is dying to get an interview to find out who she is and more about this Barron guy. Gosh, she sure is pretty.

Ostensibly this is just a Cary Grant/Ginger Rogers rom-com with war as a backdrop, but the stakes are raised as they try to avoid the Nazi’s and do … whatever it is they are trying to do. Unfortunately, the screenplay was, as Grant famously said, rubbish. Bad dialog, bad jokes, scenes that either undermine the tone or simply don’t work. It could have been so much closer to mediocre.

Interestingly this is one of the few war films of the time that make a direct reference to Jews. There is a Jewish maid whose life is in danger and our heroes even visit a concentration camp. They deserve credit for that even if the tonal balance was way off. It wanted to be a serious war film but with a love interest and star power, but it failed in the execution.

Our Jewish maid is played by Natasha Lytess who was Marilyn Monroe’s acting coach. They were close friends and outlived her by less than a year. Cancer is a bitch. A young Nazi is played by a slim John Banner, Sargent Shultz himself. I rewatched the scene to see if I could spot any Shultz in his face. I could not. What a difference twenty years makes. And sixty pounds.

Director Leo McCarey has a better than fair reputation, but I can’t help but lay the blame at his feet. The writer provides the script and the studio provides the resources, but the director has to make it all work. And it didn’t. He could have evened the tone and made sure the scenes had weight. I think he just went with what he was handed. AMRU 2.5.