This Vincente Minnelli directed comedy/romance film has it's moments, most of all when the elegant Lauren Bacall graces the screen. Gregory Peck tries his best with his part as a sports writer, meeting and marrying fashion designer Bacall after a quick affair. Both don't really know each other, and upon returning home to New York , Peck has quite a time keeping his new wife from meeting his not to happy jilted ex-girlfriend Dolores Gray. If that isn't enough he must leave town after insulting someone in his sports column. Mickey Shaughnessy is quite amusing here playing Maxie Stultz, a punchy ex-pug who is appointed to guard Peck at all times. I quite enjoyed his character who sleeps with his eyes open, with the exasperated Peck declaring, " Open your eyes and go to sleep Maxie." Choreographer Jack Cole saves the day, with a slick impromptu dance that brings down the gangsters trailing Peck. Visually pleasing to watch, with plenty of beautiful fashion's worn by Bacall, this is a film of it's time, and it remains stuck there. If you are a fan of Lauren Bacall, Gregory Peck and films from the 1950's you may find this light comedy entertaining.

Designing Woman (1957)I continue to disappoint my own optimism about movies from this period--that decade between the real end of the Old Hollywood and the real start of the New. (Let's say the nether zone of 1956 to 1965). But seeing a movie like "Designing Woman" is a chance to see what exactly these movie makers were up to. After all, the actors, directors, photographers, and writers were the same, almost to the letter, as ten years earlier. They were not idiots or failures in any sense. So...What has happened here to my eye has to do with style, an intentional shift to a very glossy, very false, very stylized kind of late 1950s mise-en-scene. Sometimes (in other movies) this rises above. Hitchcock's late 50s films come to mind. And exceptions for particular subsets of the audience exist (and blossom) like the Doris Day films and other period comedies. Some dramas that really still have resonance like "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Charade" also show the slick detachment of the movie machinery working out well, though with affectations, too.So, here's director Vincente Minnelli, who directed the remarkable 1951 romantic critique of the end of Old Hollywood, "The Bad and the Beautiful." And here are the two towering leads. Lauren Bacall is of course a legend linked first of Bogart, and to hard core Old Hollywood dramas. And Gregory Peck is better known for more serious movies like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Cape Fear." Even the great cinematographer John Alton has a resume a mile long. The writer, I admit, is less known, and the story here is thin, for sure, but he won an academy award for it, which shows how time changes perceptions. But, in all, the larger artistic intentions of the writer and director really bring a cool, dry dullness. It's a revelation to see it for what it is.It's almost like the director and producer know this isn't going to be a serious movie no matter what, that it can't be. Even the gruesome boxing match turns into a lighthearted repartee, and the glitzy high society stuff is generic and oddly lifeless (Billy Wilder does this material better, for example). And be warned, the format is itself uninvolving, with key parts switching to a simple voice-over, explaining what was happening, but not in a moody film noir way, just information.Is it worthless? Of course not. The scenes are often very complicated visually, with a huge array of extras. The filming really is gorgeous, though more static than it needs to be. There is dancing shoehorned into the plot (though both dancers are fairly dull as people, try as they do). There is a classic kind of clash of cultures that is meant to be the set-up for all the gags, Bacall the rich pampered woman of culture and Peck the working class sportswriter. Ugh, so the timing is off, the jokes flat, and the progress utterly slow. All these high production values are disposable. I hate the fact that I love all these people and thought the movie a dud. See for yourself.

I've seen at least parts of this before, but I sat through it today and couldn't stop shaking my head. Stagey, stilted, and wooden. Only a few minor actors (viz Jesse White as Charlie Arneg) seem to be at ease and make their dialogue natural. Bacall and Peck barely utter a believable syllable throughout the entire production, so you could really care less if they live happily ever after or get hit by a bus. (Dolores Gray is actually the much more sympathetic character.)The direction often seems more like choreography, with Bacall or her friends moving about the set in exaggerated or bizarre fashion. Scenes meant to be charmingly madcap (the party at the newspaper; the party at her apartment; the poker game cum theater get-together) are simply manic without being funny.Maybe Doris Day and James Garner could have breathed life into this film.

I watched this with my girlfriend last night. Her reaction was so-so until the ending, the wild "dance" by Jack Cole.Otherwise, some great scenes, but somewhat formulaic: sportswriter meets dress designer, let's see what happens. Peck is wonderful and Lauren Bacall shows that her beauty had only improved since TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT ten years earlier.But again, stick around for the finale. It's worth the wait.They say a comment needs ten lines.So there.And there.And there.