Kiss Them for Me

Amazon.com

Cary Grant--the man who defines "movie star"--plays Andy Crewson, a Navy war hero at the tail end of World War II who cons his way into a four-day leave in San Francisco. While a slick PR guy tries to turn Grant's hero status into a well-paying job, Crewson only has eyes for Gwinnith (Suzy Parker, one of the first supermodels)--who just happens to be the fiancée of a shipbuilding tycoon. Grant is always watchable, but the rest of the movie suffers from an identity crisis; while an aspiring Congressman (Ray Walston, The Apartment) cheerfully admits joined the Navy to further his political career, a buxom young woman (Jayne Mansfield, trying very hard to be Marilyn Monroe) offers herself to everyone in uniform because she sincerely feels it's her patriotic duty. A strange blend of cynical humor and light-hearted romance. --Bret Fetzer

Description

In this light-hearted wartime comedy, three WWII Navy men orchestrate a 4-day leave for themselves in San Francisco. Once ashore, they immediately set out to make it a swinging celebration - to last as long as possible! Chief among the party-bound is Commander Andy Crewson (Cary Grant). Desperate to keep the men on the straight and narrow, Lieutenant Walter Wallace (Werner Klemperer) commits the trio to becoming spokesman at a local shipyard that's owned by a local tycoon. But before long, the rowdy Crewson is courting the shipmaker's voluptuous daughter (Jayne Mansfield) with hilarious results.

Customer Reviews:

Cary Grant's "Lost" Movie.......2007-09-15

Three stars as a movie, but an extra half-star for Cary Grant's remarkable portrayal.

This film doesn't get a lot of airplay and isn't well-known -- it was unsuccessful because of its split personality.

Grant fought to make this movie, as he wanted to bring out into the open the ongoing problem of what we know today as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but the studio wanted another "light-hearted war comedy", and the movie suffers from the tug between the two themes.

Grant's portrayal of a war-weary naval aviator trying to cope with his illness might have garnered him an Oscar nomination in another film, but still rings true even with the studio-required script changes.

It also points out the differences in attitude and perception between combat veterans and both civilians and even those in the military who spend a war safely at home.

Also notable as Ray Walston's first film, playing a fellow aviator running for Congress by long-distance.

Kiss them off.......2007-07-28

I make it a habit to check out Cary Grant movies but the more I see the lesser known movies, the more I realize that Grant was a single-facetted actor. Mind you, that cool, suave delivery of his is a real show-stopper but the two or three dramatic (not romantic) scenes in "Kiss them for Me" were embarassingly forced indignation. I admit that when I read the plot before I saw the movie, I couldn't envision Cary Grant as part of a threesome that puts on a wild four-day party. And he didn't fit the role as he sort of wandered in and out of the hijinks. It may have been good acting to appear oblivious of the ever-present Jayne Mansfield but the suave act was out of place with most of this script.

I'll still give Grant a chance to show his unique talent. However, the recent viewings of "Houseboat", "Walk, Don't Run", "Kiss Them for Me" and a couple other turkeys have shown me that his later years were spent making a lot of movies that he shouldn't have.

NOT TYPICAL.......2007-07-25

Boring. This movie just drags on, and you tend to loose concentration in it. I'm sad to say, but I didn't even finish watching it. I've never done that with a Cary Grant movie before this one.
Cary Grant is probably one of my all-time favorite actors...but this movie is just BORING!

........Cary Grant At His Best...............2007-06-06

Cary takes alotta lumps from Reviewers in here, I say he was at his best by portraying a combat carrier pilot in the middle of WW2...he injects the inner/wisdom of the stressors of carrier pilots who take off in the largest ocean on this planet, drop bombs on a tenacious enemy afloat and tries to get back to his carrier in one piece, if fortunate enough ...with all these extenuating stressors of combat [dwell on this some]...he exudes all these traits when amongst his own calling, for example in the cocktail lounge high above San Francisco [The Top Of The Mark]...he encounters a younger Navy pilot in a wheelchair in the care of a Navy Chief friendly to Grant...at first Grant doesn't recognize the hero [ MOH] in the wheelchair ...in the flash of a mental/lightening bolt, Grant now recalls this young pilot now looking gravely sick as a result of aerial combat all shot up...at that precise moment, the young pilot is now aloft doing what he loves shooting down Japanese planes, destroying ships so on and so on...Grant is right with him all the way...that is a gift of an accomplished actor is Cary Grant [outside of Cary Grant]...that one scene is the BONDING of combat veterans, the rock-solid camraderie that civilians can't even recognize; let alone feel....but Grant and his comrades eminate this throughout the picture even up to the final fadeout...heading back into the war come hell or high water...heroes, of course, but the unherald types; yet, never ending mortal/combat can be such a gripping elixir to cetain men that many in here just draw a blank expression...whoever wrote this screen/play was a man of such Naval combat ilk and Grant comes through as the excellent actor who knows his character...another heart-tugging scene, when Harry Carey, Jr comes into the hotel party drunker than a skunk and blurts out their carrier was sunk!!...Grant and his buddies sink, too, with guilt as they are on an R&R... had they not...they probably would have died with their shipmates...no, this is not a bummer of a movie; conversely, a well thoughtout film about men at war, tired of killing, but it is still a long war: tomorrow-tomorrow-tomorrow, etc and that's all they know...the long and endless fight to end it, and hopefully, try to get on with a peaceful life thereafter...oh, for the record, Suzy Parker is a 100% dud of an actress, just awful...now that is your bummer!!........SSGT CHRIS SARNO-USMC FMF

not for families.......2006-11-24

OK, I learned that just because a movie is not rated and was made in the 1950s doesn't mean it's good for families. This movie made a joke of infidelity. Cary Grant's was the main character and his goal was to "get drunk and chase girls." There was no redeeming quality in him except being a good pilot. It's a pretty cynical movie as well.

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