The Grass Is Greener

Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons. A British earl opens his estate to the public, including a Texas oilman who shows up one day and charms the earls wife and even a woman from the earls past. 1960/color/105 min/NR/widescreen.

Cary Grant is the befuddled English earl casually puttering around his tourist attraction of a grand old estate in casual dress while a bull of an American millionaire (Robert Mitchum) crashes into his life and seduces Grants sophisticated lady (Deborah Kerr). Its pure fantasy, of course, with its cool, cultured lovers swapping witty banter with the same calm they swap gunshots in an old-fashioned duel. Have adultery and jealousy ever been so civilized? Stanley Donen never shakes this very British drawing-room comedy of manners free of its talky, stagebound source or its deliberate snails pace, but he does manages to bring a lightness that softens the wit with an American lilt. Ultimately, though, its all about a crack cast in fine form: Mitchums sleepy-eyed insolence, Kerrs easy elegance, Jean Simmonss flighty outrageousness, and especially the charm and measured grace that is Cary Grant.

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