Room for One More [The Easy Way] *** (1952, Cary Grant, Betsy Drake) – Classic Movie Review 4544

Director Norman Taurog’s consistently amusing, pleasantly sentimental 1952 comedy drama stars Cary Grant and his then wife Betsy Drake, who play Anna and George ‘Poppy’ Rose, a real-life husband and wife who already have three children but decide to take in two more deserving youngsters, troubled orphans Jane and Jimmy-John (Iris Mann, Clifford Tatum Jr).

The appealing playing of the stars and the whiff of realism in Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson’s warm-hearted screenplay, based on Anna Perrott Rose’s book, help to keep the level of sentimentality down, and the unsurprising script propels along sweetly on its good-natured tone.

Also in the cast are Lurene Tuttle, Randy Stuart, George Winslow, John Ridgely, Gay Gordon and Malcolm Cassell.

A one-season TV series of 26 episodes followed in 1962 with Andrew Duggan as George Rose and Peggy McCay as Anna Rose.

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

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4544

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