Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) - film review

Tired of living in his cramped Manhattan apartment with his wife and two teenage daughters, advertising executive Jim Blandings is smitten by the dream of owning a house in the country.  He finds what he believes to be his dream home, a dilapidated old villa in Connecticut, but once he has bought it he discovers that it is structurally unsound and has to be pulled down.  Undeterred, Mr Blandings perseveres and organises a new house to be built on the site, only to end up spending far more than he had intended, thanks partly to his wife Muriel’s involvement in the design.  No sooner has the house been built than Jim begins to suffer from a mental block.  Unable to think up new slogans for his clients, he quits his job – and then discovers that his wife has spent the night with an old flame...

One of the most entertaining of Cary Grant’s comic outings, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is a film that has been imitated many times since, its jokes endlessly pillaged by writers of TV sitcoms and films, but it still manages to be an enjoyable humour fest.  It may have lost something of its topicality (the shortage of housing was a hot issue in many towns across the United States in the immediate aftermath after WWII), but the film still strikes a chord, particularly as more and more of us dream about leading a better life in the country. 
 
Here, Cary Grant is partnered for the third and last time with the enchanting Myrna Loy, following their successful appearances in Wings in the Dark (1935) and The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947).  Whilst many of the jokes are predictable, their sheer abundance, together with the unflagging energy in Grant and Loy’s performances, prevents the film from ever having a dull moment.  If you are tempted to switch that box in the town for a country manor, this is the film to put you off the idea once and forever.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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