Walk, Don’t Run *** (1966, Cary Grant, Samantha Eggar, Jim Hutton) – Classic Movie Review 3071

Cary Grant bows out from the movies on a sweet but minor note at the age of 62. His final screen role in 1966 is a lightweight but pleasant remake of the 1943 comedy The More the Merrier, with Samantha Eggar and Jim Hutton co-starring in what were the original Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea roles.

Grant (in the part originally played by Charles Coburn in 1943) plays an English industrialist lodging with Eggar in a small apartment in Tokyo during the housing shortage of the Summer Olympic Games in 1964, and playing cupid when he offers room to US athlete Hutton.

Showing off his famous easy-going charm to advantage one last time, Grant breezes his way winningly through the cute speeches Sol Saks has written for him. Disguising all the hard work involved, he seems effortlessly amusing. Eggar and Hutton are appealing enough, also cute and also lightweight. John Standing steals his scenes and nearly steals the whole show as Eggar’s stuffy embassy fiancé.

Charles Walters, a veteran of the musicals, directs with a sense of timing and style, Quincy Jones provides a bright score, while Harry Stradling Sr makes Tokyo look good in Panavision and Technicolor.

Also in the cast are Miiko Taka, Ted Hartley, Ben Astar, George Takei as the Police Captain and Teru Shimada.

Sol Saks, the screenwriter and TV executive who became a millionaire for writing the pilot for the TV series Bewitched (1964), died at the age 100 on April 16, 2011.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3071

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