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It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

I watched most of this 1957 film on Turner Classic tonight. I had never heard of it. It promised to be a "four Navy buddies on shore leave and assorted pranks" flick, particularly with the thought that it featured Jayne Mansfield. I figured that Cary Grant really needed to pay alimony. However, two things about the film kept me from turning it off. The first was Suzy Parker. The second was very much unexpected and it was a ribbon through the screenplay which began to shine in Grant's lines telling off the ship building tycoon played by Leif Ericson. While I realize that the film was made twelve years after the close of the Second World War, this was no sentimental script which appealed to an audience's passions for a war in progress. Grant's Navy aviator was sick and tired of the war, of combat, of the blood and gore, of picking up after the guy next to him is blown into twelve pieces. Grant's character again displays a cynicism about the war when he tells a whopper to an inquiring reporter in a nightclub.The screenplay was even more remarkable when you realize that this movie was released in 1957....just on the late fringe of McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare. It is a tepid film at best, but a tip of the hat to Cary Grant for portraying a realistic warrior who conveys that he is sick and tired of the gore of war.

Kiss Them for Me (1957)"Funny how everybody picks him out first." Ah, they are talking about Cary Grant, still charming and handsome and far outclassing this funny, slightly simple comedy about G.I.s on leave in San Francisco.Not that this is exactly dumb--the screenplay is even by one of the Epstein brothers (of "Casablanca" fame), and it has a few real dingers of jokes. I was laughing in stitches--sometimes. It's silly stuff but the acting is decent. The photography is by Milton Krasner, who had a long career in the black and white years and then took to widescreen color with classic taste, just finishing "An Affair to Remember" (with Grant) the same year. The credits go on, from makeup (Ben Nye) to music (Lionel Newman) to of course the director, Stanley Donen, who had a whole string of brightly colored 1950s hits, little things like "Singin' in the Rain" and "Charade."What I mean by all this is that there is no reason this movie isn't terrific, except maybe a weak as licorice story idea. Maybe, just maybe, this had resonance in 1957 with the millions of ex-soldiers still going to the movies, but I have a feeling even they were wanting something more, over a decade after it had all ended. It also doesn't help that one leading female star is Jayne Mansfield playing an embarrassing Marilyn wannabe. "It's natural," says Mansfield in one moment. "Except for the color." The other leading woman is quite the opposite in nature, a stately, restrained woman played by Suzy Parker. Parker has a short resume, mostly known as a model (with Avedon as her partner in crime), and her acting reveals more knowledge of photography than movie-making. That is, she looks good. (She was actually an accomplished photographer for awhile, too.)So, why watch this movie? For a glimpse of the times, perhaps (a kind of 1957 version of 1944, I think), including lots of great sets and some shots of San Francisco. But mostly it's Cary Grant's show, even if you aren't a fan. He's actually really good as an actor, not just as a handsome fellow. He plays his part with surprising bite, too. So what rescues this movie from its fault lines? For one, there's a steady, subtle anti-war thread that must have been relatively new to this kind of movie. There's no disrespect to soldiers or the country, but there's disdain for wallpapering over the truths of war, the use of slogans, the aggrandizing. It's refreshing still, and coming from Grant it has special bite. For another, there is a steady peppering of witty lines from all kinds of characters (not just Grant, though he leads). I'm guessing this is where Epstein shows. And then there is the love story, which isn't so convincing, but it's still a nice addition to the bright color and busy scenes that dominate the movie. In fact, as much as Parker is a weak actress, she and Grant alone together make for some of the best parts of the film.Grant says, "True love almost always fades, but money stays green forever." And it's his sarcasm, his not believing the slogan, that is the theme of the movie.

A comedy with some serious overtones best describes 1957's "Kiss Them for Me."It's basically the story of 4 naval guys on leave in San Francisco. They've about had it with flying and are ready to get out of service. This includes Ray Walston running for a congressional seat in a special election.You would think it would be about their escapades in S.F. during those days, but the film turns into one or two parties at a posh hotel and then the serious stuff comes across.They're reminded of the serious stuff when they encounter one of their guys who is terminally ill and at the film's end, when their ship is blown to bits. It's time for them to reevaluate their situation and face the music.Even Jayne Mansfield, who really provides the comic relief here, has one serious moment in the film.Cary Grant, the movie stalwart, was beginning to show his age here in the same year he costarred with Deborah Kerr in "An Affair to Remember."The picture is wholesome and reminds us of our patriotic duty.

This film was a critical and box-office fiasco back in 1957. It was based on a novel which was later turned into a play--which flopped on Broadway. The story is about some navy officers on leave in San Francisco during WWII. They have 4 day's leave which they spend at the Mark Hopkins hotel. The film meanders a lot and none of the characters seem very real. Cary Grant is generally brilliant in comedy and drama--but here he plays a sort of wheeler dealer and he doesn't really pull it off. Tony Curtis or James Garner would have been better choices. Audrey Hepburn was initially set to play opposite Grant, but had other commitments--so Suzy parker stepped in. She had never acted before, but was America's top photographic model at the time. I think that she did a good job, considering all the pressure that she was under. Grant's pairing with Jayne Mansfield in a few brief scenes--did not really work. The Studio was trying to give her some class by acting with Grant--but the character had no substance at all.