User Reviews

This is not one of Cary Grant's more famous pictures and it's obvious why--it's not particularly good. In fact, through much of the film, Grant walks through his scenes as if he's trying to convey that he's a bit embarrassed at the silliness and shallowness of the film, as his performance is very subdued. In addition to Grant, Deborah Kerr stars in this comedy.

Oddly, Kerr and Grant are very miscast. Grant plays a man born in Connecticut and Kerr's nationality isn't mentioned, but she works for the U.S. State Department--yet both of them are clearly British due to their accents. Why they just didn't make them Brits, I don't know.

The film begins with Grant negotiating oil contracts with the king of the fictional Muslim nation of Bukhistan. While they are celebrating the deal, the king's sexy daughter entertains them with a dance that isn't all that good but frankly, given how beautiful she is, Grant doesn't seem to notice. It seems that he's a bit smitten with the girl, though he is already engaged to Miss Kerr and so he soon leaves to begin married life in America.

Unfortunately, Miss Kerr is a hard-driven workaholic who really isn't all that concerned with when they'll marry or where they'll go on a honeymoon--if they go at all! She's a rather clichéd character--you know, the "working woman who has no time for love or romance". So naturally, Grant is irritated with her and decides to call off the wedding. And, to spite Kerr, he asks the king's daughter to marry him, as he likes that she's very old fashioned and submissive--and very little like the cold and almost sexless Kerr.

What follows pretty much looks like a 1950s or 60s sitcom--with Kerr assigned to act as liaison between Grant and his new bride to be (since she doesn't speak English and Kerr speaks both languages). The usual sexual tension you'd expect between Kerr and Grant is all there along with some kooky adventures as the new fiancée learns what it's like to be a liberated American. And, when the film degenerates to the kooky level, you can't help but want it all to end.

The bottom line is that this is a second-rate plot--too filled with lousy writing, clichés, sitcom-like plotting and dumb situations. Plus, is it at all realistic that a devout Muslim king would even allow his beloved daughter marry an infidel? Overall, this is a passable film only because it stars Cary Grant. Even in one of his poorer efforts, he's STILL Cary Grant and managed to enliven this mess enough to make it a decent time-passer.

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.

No record of copyright, though allegedly copyrighted in 1953 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn picture. New York opening at the Rivoli: 29 July 1953. U.S. release: 19 June 1953. U.K. release: 13 July 1953. Australian release: 5 August 1953. 99 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Clemson Reade, who wants a wife in the home, not in business, breaks with Effie, a State Department official who is too busy with an oil crisis to have time for matrimony. Remembering a comely princess, Tarji, whom he met on a trip to Bukistan and the fact that she had been schooled from birth in the art of pleasing men, Reade proposes via cable. Because of the oil situation, the State Department steps in and assigns Effie to see that her ex-fiancé sticks to protocol in his new courtship. The princess comes to the United States, but the feminine craft of Effie soon has Tarji figuring that emancipation is more fun than being a dream wife.

COMMENT: Whatever promise this one-joke romantic comedy may have had, is negated by a conventional plot and strictly routine direction - this was the first film screenwriter Sidney Sheldon (Annie Get Your Gun, Anything Goes) directed, the first of two, the other being The Buster Keaton Story, the direction of which has even less to commend it than Dream Wife has. Doubtless Cary Grant (Sheldon was involved in the writing of Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer) had something to do with the assignment of Sheldon to this pic. Be this as it may, the direction is as stolidly unimaginative as can be, and whatever humor was in the original screenplay has been effectively smothered by Sheldon's heavy handling. Deborah Kerr, in some stunning Helen Rose costumes, looks absolutely ravishing and while she has the best of everything - clothes, camera angles, coiffure - Betta St John is also allowed to make some impression as the princess; but the two other attractive young lasses in the cast, Patricia Tiernan as Miss Kerr's secretary and Mary Lawrence as Mrs Malvine get hardly a look-in. Walter Pidgeon has virtually nothing to do and Bruce Bennett has a miniscule role. Take-any-job Grant walks through the proceedings with his usual not-too-involved air. There are a few chuckles in the script. Trimmed to 75 or even 80 minutes, it might make passable entertainment. Production values are moderate. Miss Kerr gets the lion's share of behind-the camera attention.

Cary Grant is Clemson Reade, an American on a business trip to a fictitious Middle Eastern country, Bukistan. He is there to sell oil-processing equipment to the reigning khan, played by Edward Franz. Back home, Reade is engaged to Miss Effington (Effie) who has a career in the U.S. State Department. Deborah Kerr's Effie is in the high ranks of the Middle East section. One can imagine where this story will go.

This 1953 MGM film was 20 years ahead of the oil "crises" of the 1970s that had a devastating effect around the world. But it gives a glimpse of the world of foreign relations and international business dealings. And, in this case, how they can overlap and interact with an amusing angle. The younger audiences of today may not know much about the cultural changes in society during the mid to late 20th century. So, things like male chauvinism and women's lib may be nothing more than something they've heard about from the past.

Well, this film clearly seems to poke fun at some customs of the time. And, it is an early jab at women's lib way before the movement became widespread more than a decade later. We see that in the early scenes when Reade returns to the U.S. With his arms full of packages at the airport a woman won't open the door for him, but another man does. Then, other men remove their hats when a woman enters an elevator. Reade fumbles his packages to remove his hat while the woman has a glare of indignation on her face. Then, there's something of a role reversal with Reade having to wait on Effie all the time as she has to work late and gets calls away from their dinner and evening out to go back to the office.

All of this seems to be juicy fodder for a very good comedy. And, with these two leads and Walter Pidgeon as Effie's State Department boss, Walter McBride, "Dream Wife" should have been a big hit. But it wasn't when it hit theaters in 1953, and it's not even mildly entertaining today.

This is clearly a case of a terrible screenplay that sinks a movie. Sometimes, the roles of actors will lift weak scripts to make fair movies. But in this case, the dull script is so bad and humorless that even Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr can't save the film. As other reviewers have noted, Grant seems to grow detached from the film as it goes along. In the early scenes he seems to strain to give a sense of comedy, as he is so adept at doing with his side-glances and facial expressions. This script is so bad it's hard to imagine the producers, directors and studio seeing any humor in it.

Others have noted that Grant was embarrassed by this poor film so much so that he didn't do another movie for two years and almost hung up his stage spurs. Thankfully, he didn't and we have some wonderful and great films with Cary Grant in the lead into the next decade. On everyone's list of most memorable love stories is Grant and Kerr's pairing for the 1957 blockbuster, "An Affair to Remember." They showed that they did have chemistry on film – if the screenplay was right.

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!