Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

trimmerb1234 Ironic that the plot revolves around an industrial chemist and his magic formula because this is a film with all the right ingredients but no magic.One can only guess that everyone thought that the list of names made reading the wordy script beforehand unnecessary.Grant, as ever impeccably groomed and dressed, is supposed to be the ultimate absent-minded professor/Mr Magoo figure - a point it wearily labours even including the pebble glasses in case the audience missed the point.A miscast Ginger Rogers, no great comedienne, is rather too old for the frolics called for. It was a part for Rosalind Russell.Charles Coburn, superb character actor, does all that was required of him.But the monkey, how did he manage to remove the lock to his cage then all in one take cross to the laboratory bench and confidently manipulate the various beakers and containers? Best monkey performance award definitely deserved.

emhughley Considered by some to be a minor or a slight comedy, I simply love this "20th Century Fox" film. I saw it when I was very young on TV and it sparked an interest in Marilyn Monroe for me that has continued to this day. The film is fast paced and very cleverly written. The film allows all the distinguished cast involved to just really cut loose at all costs. The effect is completely hilarious. Carey Grant and the wonderful Ginger Rogers offer true comic genius. Scenes where they mentally regress to teen and child like behavior after accidentally consuming a drug mixed by a chimp in a research lab are a delight to behold.I especially liked the sequence when we first see Marilyn Monroe as Mr Oxley's secretary Miss Laurel. She is in the middle of showing Cary Grant her leg and the snag free asatate nylons he lab created. Mr. Oxley summons Carey Grant to his office. He then tells Mr Oxley he will be in his office in a minute. He is checking out Miss Laurel's Ass-a tates. (hmmm... Classic..!) The film continues to delight us in all scenes involving Marilyn. She is magnetic and mesmerizing even in this small supporting role. She even giggles beautifully and she does that in a very well done speeding car sequence. Her youthful exuberance would not be denied. Its hard to believe she would pass away just 10 years after this film was released. Its to bad her role and character weren't expanded upon a bit. Marilyns fan base and fame were rising at an alarming rate in 1951 and the studio didn't quite know what to do with her. Studio head Daryl Zanuck declared, "Put that girl in every film on our lot that requires a blonde" At this period in her career FOX was using her for little more than window dressing. Marilyn was in several light comedies between 1951 and 1954. I would recommend this film to anybody who appreciates Marilyn Monroe or good old fashioned Hollywood madcap humor.

Alex da Silva A monkey invents a potion that rejuvenates humans and plops it into the office water machine in a science lab. Meanwhile, chemist Barnaby (Cary Grant) has been trying to develop a youth formula for years. He drinks his latest formula but it tastes a bit off so he goes to the water cooler. Yep - he takes a drink of water and ....woah ........what's happening..? Well, he's the monkey's first victim. He starts acting 'youthful' and everyone thinks he has succeeded in inventing Life's Youth Juice. We follow Barnaby and his wife Edwina (Ginger Rogers) as they inadvertently keep consuming the monkey formula every time that they take a drink of water from the water cooler.....will the monkey get credit for the invention? The film has a cast that excites on paper but it doesn't live up to expectations. The whole beginning sequence drags - the first 15 minutes should have been thrown out. The cast are all likable but Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers are made to act out scenes that could be over in a couple of minutes as opposed to 'let's drag it out' for 10 minutes. However, opposed to the tedious, drawn out slapstick rubbish that we are offered, we are also given moments of comic genius. George Winslow, who plays one of the kids, provides laugh-out-loud entertainment with every word of dialogue that he utters. Genius.Overall, the film entertains. It has peaks and troughs. Ginger Rogers displays good balancing skills while balancing a cup of water on her forehead as she stands up and lies down and goes back to standing position. Cool trick. Cary Grant is occasionally funny, Marilyn Monroe (Lois) is also good - she's not so irritating and baby talking as usual - while Charles Coburn (Oxley) is good value as always. Check out his request for his secretary, Marilyn, to pass on the simple duty of typing to someone else other than her.It's worth watching if you can get over the crappy beginning. I don't particularly care for kids in films but George Winslow rules.

jc-osms Unlikely comedy centred on Cary Grant's bumbling chemist's attempts to find an elixir of youth, which by its end sees just about every cast member regressed to childhood. Throw in some interaction with a mischievous chimpanzee, which even more improbably creates the anti-ageing formula and then mixes it with the water-dispenser in Grant's laboratory, for everyone naturally drinks from, and there's the supposed recipe for a no doubt expected hilarious farce.Only, it never really gets off the ground. I didn't like the too-smart-by-half opening scene, where Hawks ambitiously cuts away the wall between viewer and the actors by voicing-over directions to "Cary Grant" and while both Cary and co-star Ginger Rogers, both no strangers to slapstick, try hard, it resolutely failed to tickle my funny bone. In truth, it all seems rather forced and mannered, everyone acts as if they've been told to act funny rather than feeling the comedy.A very buxom-looking Marilyn Munroe gets a fairly chunky supporting part as a dumb secretary obviously employed for her looks, but even she barely registers in the memory apart from when she flashes some leg at Grant early in the piece. With the normally funny writing team of Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer handling the screenplay and Howard Hawks behind the camera, you might reasonably have expected a regular laugh-fest, but sadly for this fan of most of the above, this late example of a "screwball comedy", has too few screws loose to entertain humorously