HotToastyRag Only in the 1950s could a movie like Dream Wife be made! Cary Grant is engaged to strong, career-woman Deborah Kerr, but he expresses his desire for a more meek, stereotypically feminine companion. He breaks off the engagement and decides to marry Betta St. John instead. However, since Betta is a real princess, the State Department assigns Deborah to act as official chaperone between the two until the wedding!While the plot is pretty thin, the best part of this film is the banter between Cary and Deborah. They have fantastic comic timing together, and they reprised their pairing later in An Affair to Remember and The Grass is Greener. One of my all-time favorite lines comes from this film: the pair is arguing about all the things they hated about each other when they were a couple, complaints they're now allowed to voice since they're not on good behavior anymore. Cary says he always hated Deborah's perfume. "My perfume? But you always used to ask me to put it on!" Deborah exclaims. He replies, "You always wore it! What was I supposed to do, ask you to take it off?" If you're laughing, rent the hilarious The Grass is Greener. Dream Wife has a few funny lines, but it probably won't end up being your favorite old movie.

jacobs-greenwood Directed by Sidney Sheldon, who wrote the screenplay with Herbert Baker and Alfred Lewis Levitt, this late screwball, flat sex farce reunites actor Cary Grant with writer Sheldon, who'd won an Academy Award on his only nomination for The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) in their only other collaboration. That's just one of the reasons that make one feel that this comedy could have been better, another is its veteran cast that includes Deborah Kerr and Walter Pidgeon.As it is, the storyline incorporates dated male and female gender roles in a way that's infrequently funny and more often silly. What begins as a promising, although greatly simplified look at the primitive wants and needs of each sex, devolves into a less than amusing review of old stereotypes. The film did receive an Academy Award nomination for its B&W Costume Design.When Clemson Reade (Grant) finally realizes that his fiancée Priscilla Effington's (Kerr) state department job takes too much of her time and will likely delay their wedding, he decides that he's had enough. When 'Effie' realizes that 'Clem' was expecting her to give up her job when she'd married him, they mutually agree to end their engagement. He then sends a telegram to the Khan (Eduard Franz) of oil rich Bukistan, where he'd just been on business, to see if can wed the royal Princess Tarji (Betta St. John), who's been trained since birth, as per their 3,000 year tradition, to care about nothing else but pleasing her future husband. The only trouble is, the state department's Walter McBride (Pidgeon, with a rather minor role) and his assistant Effie, have been negotiating a big oil death with the Khan. They intercept Clem's crude telegram and express their concerns about his plans messing up theirs. McBride then assigns Effie, who understands Bukistan's customs and speaks their language fluently, to act as a liaison between Clem and Tarji, who's father accepts the proposal of marriage.Of course, Tarji is perceived by Clem and his jealous co-worker friends (Les Tremayne, Bruce Bennett, and Richard Anderson's characters) to be the perfect wife, but her native customs (e.g. having to walk 3 feet behind him at all times, being unable to dine with him, etc.) and the fact that the wedding is scheduled 3 months in the future (during which the Princess's imposing bodyguard is to keep them from kissing one another), gives him second thoughts. Heavyweight boxing champion Max Baer's younger brother Buddy plays Tarji's bodyguard and, in the screwball tradition, Dan Tobin does his best "Franklin Pangborn", playing a befuddled hotel manager. So Clem asks Effie to help Tarji to become more sophisticated, or domesticated for U.S. customs, and of course his ex-fiancée is only too happy to educate the Princess about famous suffragettes and other early feminists. Effie's efforts help to undo 3,000 years of Bukistan culture in just 3 months! Meanwhile, Effie begins to see Clem's attraction to Tarji (or at least his ideal of a subservient wife), in a new light. When the now English speaking, yet still very naive Tarji goes out for a walk alone, she attracts men (including Steve Forrest) like flies. It doesn't take a genius to figure out where all this is leading and, in the end, the predictable is delivered.

edwagreen Miserable picture with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. 4 years later they teamed again to make the memorable "An Affair to Remember." That was a movie! This was utter junk, at it's worst.We are fully aware of the cultural differences between the Middle East and our culture. Kerr looked like she was annoyed with the whole film and rightfully so!We know of the subservience of the Middle Eastern woman to the man. They didn't have to highlight this. The young lady sure learned quickly about American mores and she acted the part accordingly.Walter Pidgeon had little to do here and this wasn't the way for Bruce Bennett to be ending his acting career, or for Richard Anderson to begin his.How are they going to keep them down on the farm, after they've seen Paris? Easy. Keep away from this putrid film.Am so tired of seeing an American or British woman who is totally immersed in her career to a point that she will forsake marriage and family. Hillary Clinton and other ladies, you've come a long way ladies!

deewitt I saw this movie for the first time on TCM, interested because of the pairing of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. It's really boring, with a silly, unbelievable plot. Worse than that, Grant looks and act in such a peculiar manner. He appears to be bone-thin, with his suits just hanging on him. And his expressions and body language border on the effeminate in some sequences. This is not the dashing, debonair, sophisticated Cary Grant we've all become accustomed to seeing in so many movies over the years.Kerr has a brief drunk scene that is unusual for her screen persona. Aside from that, there's not much to her character that can save this dreary flick.The one thing worth noting is the movie's benign portrayal of Islamic rulers. Was it really like that 50 years ago, or were we just too ignorant to know any better?