Houseboat *** (1958, Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, Martha Hyer, Eduardo Ciannelli, Harry Guardino, Murray Hamilton) – Classic Movie Review 4543

Co-writer/ director Melville Shavelson’s popular 1958 romantic comedy Houseboat has the inestimable advantage of teaming wonderful Cary Grant and Sophia Loren, great friends in real life, in their glorious golden days.

There were two Oscar nominations: Best Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen (Melville Shavelson and Jack Rose) and Best Song (‘Almost In Your Arms (Love Song from Houseboat)’, music and lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans). The screenplay is based on an original script by Grant’s wife at the time, Betsy Drake, and thereby hangs a tale.

Shavelson’s and Jack Rose’s screenplay shouts out all aboard for a light romantic interlude, with Loren as Italian foreign au pair Cinzia Zaccardi, who is hired by widower Tom Winters (Grant) for his three bratty young children (Mimi Gibson, Charles Herbert, Paul Petersen) living together on a neglected houseboat.

Shavelson’s movie may be lightweight and predictable, and unsure of whether it wants to be a family farce or a sex comedy. But it is also lighthearted and pleasant, and, anyway, with these adorable stars in their prime, who cares? They are a delight. A glossy looking film, it is shot by Ray June in Technicolor and VistaVision on a variety of picturesque locations.

The cast are Cary Grant as Tom Winters, Sophia Loren as Cinzia Zaccardi, Martha Hyer as Carolyn Gibson, Harry Guardino as Angelo Donatello, Eduardo Ciannelli as Arturo Zaccardi, Murray Hamilton as Captain Alan Wilson, Mimi Gibson as Elizabeth Winters,  Paul Petersen as David Winters, Charles Herbert as Robert Winters, Madge Kennedy as Mrs Farnsworth, John Litel as William Farnsworth, Werner Klemperer as Harold Messner, Susan Cabot as Mrs Eleanor Wilson, Kathleen Freeman as laundromat gossip, Brooks Benedict, Bess Flowers, William Remick, Joe McTurk, Mary Forbes, Julian Rivero and Pat Moran.

It was released on 19 November 1958.

Grant and Loren previously starred together in The Pride and the Passion (1957).

When Loren didn’t attend the Oscars to pick up her Academy Award for Two Women (1961), it was Grant who phoned her at 6am in Italy to break the news of her win. Two Women made her the first actor to win an Oscar for a non-English-language performance.

Whoopi Goldberg: ‘You turned down Cary Grant!’ Loren: ‘Did I?’

The love theme ‘Almost In Your Arms’, sung by Sam Cooke and ‘Bing! Bang! Bong!’, sung by Sophia Loren, are both written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.

And so, the tale. Grant’s wife Betsy Drake wrote the original script for Houseboat, and they intended to star together, but Grant and Loren began an affair while filming The Pride and the Passion. So Grant got Loren to replace Drake and organised a rewritten script for which Drake received no credit. But the affair ended awkwardly while The Pride and the Passion was still filming, causing problems on the sets of both films. Grant hoped to resume his relationship with Loren, but she married Carlo Ponti in 1957.

Grant and Drake separated in 1958, remaining friends, and divorced in 1962.

Martha Hyer died on 31 May 2014, aged 89.

Betsy Drake, the former wife of Cary Grant who starred in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) and with Grant in Room for One More (1952), died in London on October 27 2015, aged 92.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4543

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