Powerful

Please don't spend money on this.

Awesome Movie

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Brace yourself for what might be an unpopular opinion: this is a rare swing and a miss for Cary Grant and Howard Hawks, two artists near their peaks, both with great batting averages.A strangely uncharming Grant and an oddly unsexy Ann Sheridan simply snipe at each other while paired on a dull military mission for nearly an hour, absent any real chemistry or laughs; eventually the two surprisingly unlikable characters seem to glance at their watches and realize it's time to fall in love and move on to the next thing.The next thing is what I call a frustration comedy: a series of circumstances work to foil the characters at every turn. In this case, it's thick-headed U.S. Army bureaucracy that torments newlyweds Grant and Sheridan in a way that is unpleasant at best (and extremely grating for this viewer). For one extended sequence, Grant is denied a place to sleep in either army or civilian quarters, turned away from one place and then another and another, even officiously pulled from an improvised bed and sent into the night, simply because he is a "male bride". It's almost as much screwball fun as watching someone being put on hold by an automated phone service. (The Army must have HATED this damaging portrayal).Once the wooden pair are married, the comic focus of the film shifts to flogging the joke spelled out in the title, and though it's the type of thing Grant usually did superbly- see "Bringing Up Baby", also with Hawks- it simply isn't funny here.Well, even the great ones miss now and then, and fortunately Grant's, Hawk's, and Sheridan's fine legacies don't hang on this stumble.

Captain Henri Rochard (Cary Grant) is a French officer assigned to work with Lieut. Catherine Gates. Through a wacky series of misadventures, they fall in love and marry. When the war ends, Capt. Rochard tries to return to America with the other female war brides. Zany gender-confusing antics follow.I am amused by the casting of Grant as a Frenchman -- it worked in the 1940s, but would never work today. Grant, obviously, is not French. He does not even attempt an accent. But for whatever reason, this does nothing to take away from the movie...This is the sort of humor we expect from Grant and Hawks. While not quite as quick-witted as some of the other films they did, it still has plenty of clever moments. It also should get credit for being a relatively early cross-dressing movie, even if the only actual cross-dressing is Grant with a horse tail on his head.

Captain Henri Rochard is assigned to work with Lieutenant Catherine Gates on a very serious mission. Tho initial problems between the two are rife, it's not long before the two of them fall in love and hastily arrange to get married. However a ream of bureaucratic red tape ensures the couple can not be together and with Catherine set to go back to America, there may be only one option, Henri will have to invoke a War Brides Clause in army regulations, with some rather zany results.I Was a Male War Bride is not even close to being a poor film, it has many moments of hilarity and contains a last twenty minutes to savour, it is however un-fulfilling as a comedy whole and sags on far too many occasions. How much of this is down to the chemistry of the leads and off camera illness problems is open for debate, for both Cary Grant {Rochard} and Ann Sheridan {Gates} both suffered ill health during the shoot, while director Howard Hawks himself was to succumb to being unwell at an inappropriate juncture. Tho Ava Gardner was originally wanted for the role of Gates {something i feel would have been excellent, if still wishing for a more comedic actress}, Hawks went for the more brisk acting of Sheridan, tho a fine actress, she seems wrong here, not quite coping with the comedy interplay with her leading man, almost missing the comedic beat as it were. Grant himself was said to have praised the picture quite often, but he does look weary and often appearing to be on auto pilot during the more laborious sequences.The film has many supporters, but i can't in my wildest dreams term this as a screwball comedy, perhaps i expect better from Grant and Hawks?, i mean after His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby and to a lesser extent, Monkey Business, my expectation for this one was always likely to be high, and of course viewing Sheridan as a great dramatic actress was meaning i viewed this one with suspicion from the off. I honestly feel the last twenty minutes saves the picture from being very average, the script perks up, and naturally a bit of gender confusion always raises a titter, tho the sight of Grant in drag looks more akin to Frankenstein's monster than the boys from Some Like It Hot!. It's more than worth a watch and it has guaranteed laughs dotted throughout, it just falls some way short of being a comedy classic in this viewers humble opinion. 6/10

Howard Hawks proves once again why he is considered to be the director's director. The story is fairly simplistic, but with the help of brilliant actors and ingenious dialogue he turned it into a masterpiece and a classic. And it's a damn funny movie, too.I expected an explanation how the limey Grant got to join the French army, until the credits rolled and forced me to realise that he was meant to be genuine, native French. The good thing here is that Grant never in the least tries to act French, which is probably a good idea as it would have proved to be annoying in the long run. He merely wears a képi.The chemistry between Ann Sheridan and Cary Grant is amazing, and Ann is so damn sexy. I particularly enjoyed her role as a strong yet sensuous woman, who, in contrast with many other female roles of the time, comes across as plenty fresh and modern.The movie is a light-hearted comedy for the first half, and then suddenly turns into an almost Kafkaian nightmare for the rest. Grant really shows us his thespic stuff when he's battling being turned into a woman for bureaucratic reasons.I'm giving this only nine points because I want to leave me some room for improvement. But it's a brilliant and very enjoyable movie, which is sadly underrated.