How World War II Was Won-With Cary Grant’s “Kiss Them For Me” (1957) In Mind

DVD Review

By Sandy Salmon

  

Kiss Them For Me, starring Cary Grant, Jayne Mansfield, Suzy Parker. 1957

In wartime all emotions, plans, ideas are kind of pushed together and what would ordinarily be a slow-moving train turns into a supersonic airplane ride. That was certainly the case in the matter of love and marriage as the film under review of Cary Grant’s Kiss Them For Me  film adaptation of the 1945 play brings to the fore. And World War II the time frame of this cinematic effort, the time of the Generation of ‘68’s, my parents, the parents of today’s baby boomer generation was no exception. That wartime was filled with all kinds of hasty marriages some which lasted forever as in my own parents’ case and some didn’t (and some lasted forever shouldn’t have either).  (That “kiss them for me’ by the way as a symbol of the time no mere happenstance for there is a very famous photograph taken in Time Square, New York City of a sailor in a deep embrace all out kiss with some dame whom he may or may not have known, probably not, once V-E Day was declared to end the war in the European Theater).         

Of course even in a romantic comedy as here there is a need to be solemn about the dedication of those who rolled back the night-takers in the European and Pacific wars not all of them who made it and laid down their heads in some watery or mud splattered grave. Here Cary Grant and companions are gadabout Navy fliers out in the Pacific War, the part fought against the Japanese, who by daring-do get ride from Honolulu circa 1944 to San Francisco for some well-deserved shore leave. All of this done in a normal smooth as silk Cary Grant style who is a guy with a fast glib comic tongue ad who butter would not melt in his mouth. One they get into Frisco town it is party time as long as they can hold out. Of course along the way they have to deal with the fact that they are under orders to report to a medical facility over in Oakland which would and will crab their style. And along the way Cary and pals are figuring out ways to avoid that situation like the plague.    

Here’s where the love and romance if you can get it comes in. Cary is smitten by this Gwentyth, played by fetching ex-model Suzy Parker, a good-looking take her anywhere proudly red-head who probably was the dream of any service guy who wanted to settle down to a nice nest after the war. Well she is already “spoken for” by a well-heeled (and heel) war contractor who is nothing but trouble for Cary and the boys. But all Cary has to do is put on that smooth as silk charm and bingo he and she, they are an “item” all in a couple of days. Yeah, the times were like that. But in the normal patriotic twist that hot affair will have to be put on hold for the duration since the boys rejecting a soft stateside assignment head back to the danger to finish what they had started.  Not the best Cary Grant vehicle but adequate.      

[Somewhat incongruously this film also stars blonde, very blonde, 1950s busty bombshell Jayne Mansfield who was, along with Marilyn Monroe except Jayne was a step or two down in the talent category, the epitome of World War II generation guys, my father’s generation guys, idea of a highly sexual desirable woman. Unlike the iconic Marilyn who could really though Jayne played to type the “dumb bimbo” which in this film seemed out of place. Maybe she knew somebody high up in the studio but her performance detracted from the main play-that Cary charm-and in the end serious side of war despite the on-screen antics.]