 The Blandings builds his dream house. Here are movies we can learn from. I'm Jay Fiedel on Think Tech and my friend is George Cason. And we're gonna talk about that movie today. It's 1948 and it's sort of Gregory, rather Carrie Grant and Myrna Loy and a bunch of Melvin Douglas. Very interesting cast. You've heard their names before. But I think the first thing we should discuss, George, is what's the environment for this movie? 1948, Hollywood was just coming out of the war. They were appreciating the greatest generation. On the other hand, we were turning nationalistic again. We were turning inside isolationist as we had been in the 30s. And this movie is not controversial. This movie is not an international view of things at all. Even though we had just finished this enormous world war. So what's the environment in which this movie was made? In Hollywood, in the US and globally? Yeah, I would think that this is a post war kind of thing to get people back into, you know, peace time. You know, and the whole thing was, there was this whole thrust of leaving the cities, you know, in 1948, I mean, I think this was one of the first movies I ever saw when I was born in late 47. And my parents were actively looking to get out of their forest tools department and go to the suburbs, right? So I remember this. And this is what sort of interested me in architecture, you know, getting, you know, I've started doing plans and stuff, you know, after this movie. So as a little kid, you know, two to three, four years old, right before kindergarten. So bottom line is you're talking about an era, you know, we've really come a long way because African-American, we had an African-American president and first lady, we have an African-American vice president now. Back then, Louise Beavers, she was the maid. You know, I think she was, I remember her in other shows, I think on TV too, she was always happy, you know, they portrayed African-Americans as happy. I guess she was happy because she was an actress and had been successful. She was a caricature. She was a caricature. She was a cartoon. And I mean, they suggested it, the movie suggested, oh yeah, your middle class, you should have an African-American maid. Exactly. What's that about? I had forgotten all of that. The part of Leave It the Beaver was having a maid. And, you know, I didn't know a lot of people when I grew up that had maids, but this middle class guy had a maid. And I think it was like a window on that era and that post-World War II era put on a happy face, you know, get people thinking off all the seriousness that like today we have a lot of all around the world a strife. So the reason I had liked this movie is because, you know, I'm studying architecture and it's always interested in architecture and architectural history. So again, it gives you a window of that era, but it shows also all the tribulations for people who decide that they want to build their own house, right? And all the codes and the problems with the site and all of that. And it's a comedy, so it makes you laugh, but it's also a learning experience, not only for what you were mentioning, the era, you know, getting a picture of that era, which was very different than today, you know, I mean, even in the 50s it was very different from today. And then you see all the different things with housing and then that was the era where people started, as I said, leaving the city, you know, and then that also caused problems in the cities, the stores closed, the cities went down and then it took years for them to come back, you know. So it's just a sort of a window on that. Plus it's fun. I mean, all three major characters, you know, Kerry Grant, Myrna Loy and the Melvin Douglas, they played the roles, even Jason Roebard's father, Jason Roebard's senior, I think he was retch, he played the contractor. Oh, funny, you know, and it makes you laugh and it reminds me of my youth, you know. So let me leave it at that. If you have any other insights, Jay, you know, I'll hand it over to you and then we can discuss. Well, you selected this movie and kudos to you for doing that. I mean, it's a change up. It's black and white. It's old, 1948 is old, man, you do the math. And it's funny and it's warm, okay? And all the characters are warm, lovable characters, but they get involved in situations that are, you know, hard on them and you see how they react to those situations. And those situations are not foreign to us. We know how that works because building a house, it's the same today in so many ways, you know, but you're right. This is a family that was somewhere in Manhattan and doing pretty well, but they're stuck in a little tiny apartment and they gotta get out because they keep running into each other. And there's a daughter there, so what is her name? It's Sharon Moffitt, the daughter. Yeah, right. Her name is Joan Blandings. Blandings, such an interesting name. It suggests Bland, okay? In some way, he's Bland. But it also suggests that he's, you know, doing pretty well in his job as a PR executive and advertising agent and, but holding on to his job by his fingernails. He's charged with finding a jingle to sell some kind of ham. And he doesn't come up with it until the very last moment and saves his job. It's very interesting. Who comes up with it? But Louise Beaver's character, the maid comes up with it. Right. She's pretty sharp, you know, even though she's only the maid. She's the heroine. See, you know, he's been trying and banging his head on the wall to find a jingle and he can't slogan over this ham and he can't do it and he's stuck on it. And all of a sudden she makes some statement about the ham and he says, that's it? I've got it, you know? It's not ham unless it's wham or something along those lines. She saved the day, you know? She saved the day. But here's a guy who's about to lose his job and he makes all these irrational moves about the house. And, you know, I must say that this is not the only movie that Carrie Grant played with Myrna Loy. They had other movies together. And Myrna Loy was all over Hollywood with all the great leading men. And she was very popular in the late 40s. I was fascinated with her as an actress, as, you know, playing the role of a wife. And she was so cute and wise guy and great lines. You know, when they say comedy back in 1948, somebody wrote it down really carefully. It was, this was not extemporaneous. This was lines that some, you know, comedian, movie writer wrote down. And she was really good at it. And she played the role of this devoted wife who was always prodding her husband, who had a say, but he made him feel that he was running the operation. And I must say that it's from another time. Myrna Loy is from another time. But I was so fascinated, I went and looked her up. Born in 1905 in Montana, 1993, she died. She was in so many movies with so many leading men. And it was something about her. She didn't look them in the eye somehow. She was just always being cute and independent and slightly wise guy and very pretty, of course. She must have been very popular then, although I could leave her hairdos behind. But that's the 40s. The 40s was not a time of taste. But she was, you know, she was a universal character in this movie. She was a dedicated wife, but who was actually showing her husband the way. And he was a klutz. You know, you don't think of Carrie Grant as a comic hero klutz, but he did so many klutzy things. And of course, if you're gonna build a house in Connecticut and you don't have the money to pay for, that was really a challenge to understand how he could do it. And in the end, they gave you a message, you know, the American movie message. The message was, don't sweat the small stuff. It'll be okay at the end. And the Port Parole person, the guy who actually articulates the message is Melvin Douglas, the lawyer. What was his name in the movie? Cole, Bill Cole. Bill Cole, who was a really nice guy and a lawyer you could like and a wise man, but also there was also Mellow. They were, all of them were Mellow. Things would happen and everybody would forgive each other. I'm not sure it works that way now. You know, you get ticked off at somebody and you get even, but you don't forgive them. They're all forgiving each other, all through the movie. They're all tolerating each other. And retaining their relationships. And his relationship, Cole's relationship, Melvin Douglas's relationship with Carrie Grant was really good. They were gentlemen together. They respected each other. They liked each other. They listened to each other. And more than anything, they made jokes about each other. They were always pushing and prodding and gibbetsing each other. And I suppose that's part of life in the 40s. But he was an important member of the years. You're right. There were three of them that were really the principals, you know, Carrie Grant, Myrna Loy and Melvin Douglas. Those three made the movie work. I could have seen better writing, you know. I could have seen a little sharper. And maybe they were kind of experimenting with how you do a comedy with these actors. And it was, you know, it was a little, sometimes it was a little bit stiff, but unbalanced. The jokes were pretty funny. The situations were pretty funny. All of the trouble that Carrie Grant got involved in, all the mistakes he made and all of the environment, I'm gonna call it that, the home-building environment was pretty funny how all these guys took advantage of him and it cost him so much more money. But I was interested. I'm sure you were in the amount of money. Oh, at the end of the day, poor Carrie Grant, he spent $20,000, which was something $8,000 over what he expected to spend. Oh, he was out of pocket, $8,000. I say to myself, oh my God, to be back there then and build this huge, big, wonderful house for $20,000, really, including 35 acres of land, that was really something. But I think the message was, don't sweat it. You know, you get into building a house, it's gonna cost you more than you think and there are gonna be problems, you know, in the water, the engineering, the building department, the mortgagee, everything is going to give you a headache. And it did in this movie. It was like a, how do you do it? It's a how-to movie on how you do a house in Connecticut. And some people would have been turned off and say, oh, I never do that. But other people would say, okay, okay, this is, I make a checklist, I deal with all these issues and problems and tips and tricks and I get the house done the way he did. And in the end, it's a happy time. Everybody's happy, right down to the maid. They're all happy. So, you know, it was refreshing and I'm glad you selected it because I felt it was refreshing at a time perhaps when the country needed lighthearted entertainment with this kind of lighthearted humor and looking up kind of thing. This is the beginning of their new life together as a family. His job was secure. His house came out well, even after all the troubles. His relationships were all good. Life was better before than when you first met them by a long degree, by a lot. And so maybe that's what the country needed. It needed to hear that life can be better after a bad war. And what about now, Jay? What about all the strife around the world? I could start with Ukraine. I could start with other issues. Armenia getting attacked, other things all around the world. There's all kind of strife. So sometimes we need a little bit of comedic relief. Just like back then, Stalin was in power. Even the World War II was over. We were dealing with a lot of other issues with the Soviet Union and NATO was being formed. It was one remark about the United Nations. That was just a joke that Kerry Grant made about the United Nations. And that helped to place the movie in the time continuum. Oh, this movie was made after the United Nations was formed, 1948, right? The United Nations was formed in I think 1946. So that was a piece of news. But there was nothing about the war. There was nothing about any friends or relatives or family that might've been killed in the war. There was nothing about the larger economy of the country. There was nothing about the isolationism that followed the war or the McCarthyism that was gonna come out. Soon thereafter. And there was nothing about the trouble, as you say, in Russia or Asia or anywhere. Not a word of geopolitical discussion about anything. You say to yourself, this is leaving to beaver. It's a movie that ignores the world outside of their little spot, their little family thing. And focuses on how life is in the kitchen and the living room with their friends and coming home from work and schmoozing with your wife and your friends and your kid. And you're made, and you're made of course. But I mean, it was a very narrow kind of environment because they didn't want it to be. And in those days, I don't think the movies were very, very wide. They didn't cover the reality of the, what I'm gonna call it, the news environment. It's the global environment at all. It was an escape. Movies were like an escape, a lot. This was like a comedic escape from the traviles of life. Making a living, people dying, your family, sadness. It's sort of like something we, you know, some once in a while, I mean, from a lot of the movies we've done are dealing with real serious issues. And the next one, the next few we're gonna be doing are also ones dealing with really serious issues. So this is sort of a respite, you know? It's comedic. It doesn't deal with all the problems in the world. And I needed that, you know? I mean, right now I needed a comedic relief. And this movie was something, first movie, as I said, was probably the first movie I ever saw. And from my childhood, you know? That was, I was into architecture. And they, you know, they got the different architects, the plans and the kind of contractors and all of that that I'm learning now, you know, in the different classes. So it sort of hit home, you know? But yeah. Well, you know, I was interested, as I always am, in the way they portrayed her. And I thought that Myrna Loy was a great actress, such a pretty, I don't want to say seductive, but engaging woman, she was a very engaging actress and character in this. And they had a, according to the movie, they had this great resilient relationship, this great resilient family. Although, you know, there were issues and problems in building the house and he would go nuts once in a while. And, you know, you wonder, is that a real reaction or are they over the top on that one? But bottom line, as I said, is that they all stayed together and nobody went, you know, off the side. And the relationships actually improved in the course. It wasn't dynamic, it always has to be dynamic. He learned, he learned about his family. He learned about building houses. He learned about taking advice from his maid on coming up with a jingle, you know. He learned, he matured in the course of this movie, which, you know, by its own terms, it was what, a year long, maybe a year and a half long to build the house. And she was his stalwart wife. She was really lovable. And she was sort of the picture of the modern, at least at that time, the modern loving wife woman who always backed up her man, but who understood him very well. It was a marriage that worked. There was sort of a subplot about how he believed that she was having an affair with the lawyer, Melvin, what's his name? Melvin Douglas Bill Cole, which turned out to be untrue. And, you know, he felt like a silly, silly fool when he realized that it was nothing happening. And she was so tolerant of him. It's like, this is how you should behave, you know, in a stressful situation. And I think Hollywood was trying to find exactly what you said, George. Was trying to find something that would make you feel good that would give you, leave it to be, were kind of lessons about how to live a middle class life and improve your world and your family and all that. Hollywood was pretty young, actually, 1948. If you recall, there were a lot of dark movies in 1948. I mean, dark in the way they set it up, dark in the acting and the situations, but this was not dark at all. As a matter of fact, it's a black and white movie. But after you watch the movie, start watching the movie, it's like in color. It's not black and white at all. It's so colorful. Exactly. Sort of like, as we said, it's sort of an escape from it. Hollywood wants to put a field with kind of movie. Well, we have some of those now today, you know, the silly romance movies. But I think Hollywood was so careful about every word, every move. Hollywood was more poetic, to will, in those days. They were trying so hard to make it all come together. They were trying to achieve perfection. And, you know, Cary Grant was a very popular actor. And the movies he made, very popular. And Myrna Loy, oh boy, she must have been the apple of everybody's eye back then. The way she was so pretty and so fetching on the screen. I don't think she'd be fetching in today's movies, but she was fetching then. So I think they were, as Hollywood always does, trying to send a message. And the message was successful. And it, Hollywood grew by having movies like this. As I said, there were other movies with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. This was not the only one. And all in all, you have to see this in a continuum, in a continuum of Hollywood, and also in a continuum of the country, even though they didn't really cover the country at all. And I can imagine this movie going overseas and everybody overseas loving it. Why? Because it was escapist. Because it, you know, it was leave it to be for a little, can we just get away from the dark things for a little while and see this? So. Precisely. Yeah. That's, that's, it's an escape movie, as it said, right? But worth watching. I mean, ordinarily speaking, I would say, you're kidding me, you're kidding me, George. You tell me, I should watch a movie made in 1948 with these old, you know, screen icons. Who cares, you know? Nothing fancy there. Not a, not a, not a step of violence of any kind. It's not even really get mad at each other. And it was frothy is what it was. And so my first reaction was, George, why'd you do this to me? My second reaction was this, this was a great value. This was a story of Americana, perhaps at its best. This was an expression of the greatest generation. Although you didn't know what Carrie Grant, Mr. Blanding, Blandings was doing during the war. This is three years after. And if you had to guess from the way the screenplay worked, he had nothing to do with the war. He never got drafted. He never went to fight. Nobody he knew was involved. He was just living this happy life with his happy family and being completely untouched by the trauma the country had just come through. You know, I liked a lot of those movies from the 40s and 50s because it was an escapism. It was happy, you know? There's so much reality and sadness in the world and what I've dealt with with my family and all of that, that sometimes you need an escape like this, you know? And I would like to see as we've spoken all this violence, you know, in movies today, one after another, they copy each other, you know? I don't think that's good for what the youth are seeing. And then, and as we've talked about all these shootings, you know, young people and adults going out and shooting people, all this bad blood between people. And this movie didn't show that. It was just, I mean, I'm sure behind the scenes, there's problems, you know? Even, you know, with couples, you know, back in those days. But this movie is like a happy, happy movie, you know? And I needed that right now. And I'm busy, so, you know, Jay, I've said, in the last 40 years, until I started doing this with you, I maybe had seen five or six movies because, you know, it was just, I wasn't a movie goer anymore. So there aren't that many movies that I really remember, you know, that I've seen, you know? And some of them are not a, some of the Richard Bardot movies and the other one I mentioned, you know, on Santa, we need, they're not appropriate for a family show, you know? So there really wasn't that many choices. So I would have to go out and start watching movies to choice to some. So this one I remembered, as I said, the first movie I probably ever saw in my life. And it left a mark because, you know, interest in architecture. So, you know. Also, it's a movie that teaches you some important lessons. You know, the violence movies, the vengeance movies, teach you to be angry. I teach you that, you know, you should always have a gun handy. You know, this is part of the problem in the country. Movie like this in the 40s, trying to get away from violence. They're trying to get away from the dark side and teaches you it's okay, take a chance. Build your house. Spend time with your family. Have consensus among the people around you. Stay close to them. Don't lose them. And it'll all work out. That was the message. It's not a bad message. If you want to, you know, if you want to give an influence to people, young kids like you at the time, or me, although I don't think I saw it then. You know, it's not a bad message. And maybe there ought to be more of Hollywood, of the romance, if you will, that Hollywood was selling at the time. This was Hollywood. And this is what attracted people all around the country and all around the world. It was nothing to complain here because it was all good and nourishing and wholesome. It was apple pie. And unfortunately, we're a long way from that now. And the process of building a house, you know, you learn, you know, I mean, I don't know how much of the public know the process of permitting and problems with water, you know, divining, you know, and then they find the water in the wrong place and then problems with old houses that, you know, trying to restore an old house. So for me, it was sort of a learning experience for people too about the whole construction. And that really hasn't changed. I mean, that much with all the new technology, the basic, we're still building woodhouses because, you know, the qualities of wood as opposed to steel and whatever. So we're still doing, so that was part of it too, that it's a learning experience for people. But we're gonna go back, as I know, in the next few weeks that we're gonna be dealing with some real need, really, subjects, sadness, you know. So this is sort of like a little break from it. So how do you, what do you think of this movie in terms of rating it? I mean, I know what I'm gonna give it. I wanna rate the movie at one rating and I wanna rate Myrna Loy at another. At another. Lighter, yeah. I really liked her. I told you, I went and looked her up afterward. So I'd give Myrna Loy at 10. That's how I feel about Myrna Loy. She's gone now in every way, but I think she was an important part of the development of Hollywood in those years. And a positive part, a positive, a really cute, constructive, appealing part. The movie itself got a lot of seven out of 10 ratings. You know, I had to admit that to you in advance at the time and thereafter, 7.2 all too often was the rating it got. I would rate it a little higher than that. I would rate it, you know, because it's iconic because you and I, you know, both liked it, spent the time watching it. And therefore we should give credit for it as a movie that is a keeper. That is a classic in its own way. A silly classic is what it is, okay? Wasn't the only one at the time, but we remember it for that. So I would give it an 8.2 and I would give Myrna Loy a 10. I was gonna say 8.5 or 8.75 or something like that. I'll say 8.75, you know, because it made me laugh, you know? So it got me away, you know, away from dealing with reality and doing some laughs. So I'd give it an 8.75, so. Yeah, yeah, it gets credit, sort of like the Automat movie we reviewed last time for being a piece of nostalgia, of reminding us how sweet and simple life was even in the late 40s. So thank you. That's what sort of segway me into this was the Horn and Hard Art movie, which brought back that era and then, and I thought of this as well. So yeah, it's interesting, you know, that era, how different, how much social change there's been, how much we've progressed really in some ways, you know, equality among the race, the races, the equality of men and women have more equality now. That was sort of a different era, but it's sort of a window on that era. And as she said, she played that role to a tee. She's, they were all good. I mean, Kerry Grant, you know, for him, I don't know how many buffoon, how many buffoons he played, but he was the buffoon here, you know? And I don't remember that many Melvin Douglas movies, but he played his role. They all played their role real well. So there was good acting here, you know? I mean, do you remember Kerry Grant being playing a buffoon in any other movie? No, no, I thought that's a very good point. You know, he was the leading man. He was a serious romantic or even, you know, a leading man in a very, you know, serious way, not so romantic. And I remember him to be, you know, really good-looking leading man kind of actor. This is not that at all. This is comedic, as you said. He played the role of a buffoon. He's always getting in trouble. It was almost, I wouldn't say slapstick, but it was, you know, silly. It's what it was. It was silly, it was silly. But the thing is that the mark of a good actor or actress is to be able to play different roles as we've discussed before. You know, to play a role out of the normal character that you're playing, you know? And he did well. I mean, he was a good comedic character in this movie, which was rare for him, you know? And that was also, I think a plus to show the breadth of his acting ability, you know, and how he can play it at this kind of a role yet. Well, it teaches you that Hollywood was sensitive to what the country, if not beyond the country, what they needed. And this was clearly a movie that was needed at the time. And it's also a movie. It's a two-way street. It's media. It's also a movie that left you lessons, not only the how to build a house lesson, you know, the checklist on building houses, but also on how to behave. And I think that's helpful at a time when many people don't know how to behave. So that's why it's so refreshing to see the way people behaved in those days and how friendly and warm they were with each other. That's an important part of the movie for me. Anyway, okay, next time we have another one lined up. It's gonna be very good. And the great movie, it's a South American movie, but it's got all the markers of a great story. And in part, it's true. All right, thank you, George. Always nice to talk to you. Same to you, same here, Jay. Thank you, Aloha. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.