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Big Brown Eyes

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Big Brown Eyes
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRaoul Walsh
Screenplay byBert Hanlon
Raoul Walsh
Based on"Hahsit Babe"
"Big Brown Eyes"
1935 Liberty magazine stories
by James Edward Grant
Produced byWalter Wanger
StarringCary Grant
Joan Bennett
Walter Pidgeon
CinematographyGeorge T. Clemens
Edited byRobert L. Simpson
Music byGerard Carbonara
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • April 3, 1936 (1936-04-03)
Running time
77 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$289,696[1]
Box office$359,009[1]

Big Brown Eyes is a 1936 American romantic comedy crime film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Cary Grant, Joan Bennett and Walter Pidgeon.[2] It was produced by Walter Wanger and distributed by Paramount Pictures.

Plot

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Police officer Danny Barr is chasing jewel robbers. His girlfriend, Eve Fallon, is initially working as a manicurist, but quickly takes a job as a reporter assisting in the effort against the jewel thieves. Fallon and Barr become disgusted when one jewel gang member is acquitted after killing a baby in Central Park, and both leave their jobs. Soon thereafter, Fallon gets a lucky break while giving a manicure and the case is solved.

Cast

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Reception

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The film recorded a loss of $14,645.[1] Critics have regarded it as "disposable"[3] and "inconsequential"[4] with "shoddy writing and generally uninspired performances."[5]

Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene gave the film a positive review, characterizing it as "a fast well-directed and quite unsentimental gangster film, pleasantly free from emotion".[6]

More recent writers have been kinder to the film. Grant biographer Scott Eyman called it an "unheralded gem in Grant's catalogue, a snappy comedy-drama [...] a cheerfully disreputable pre-Code film unaccountably made after the Code, with speedy cross-talk that prefigures His Girl Friday."[7] Writing for The New Yorker, Richard Brody hailed the film's "cocksure grifters and workaday wiseacres who dish out sharp-edged patter—none more than Grant and Bennett, whose gibing often resembles quasi-Beckettian doubletalk. Here, Grant offers early flashes of the brash, suave, and intricate antics on which his enduring comedic persona is based."[8]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Bernstein, Matthew (1994). Walter Wagner: Hollywood Independent. University of California Press. p. 436. ISBN 978-0520081277.
  2. ^ Brody, Richard (February 10, 2015). "Movie of the Week: "Big Brown Eyes"". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 16, 2017.
  3. ^ Vineyard, David L. (August 8, 2009). "A Movie Review". mysteryfile.com. Retrieved May 16, 2017.
  4. ^ Kellow, Brian (November 26, 2004). The Bennetts: An Acting Family. University Press of Kentucky. p. 205. ISBN 0813123291.
  5. ^ N., F.S. (May 2, 1936). "At the Capitol". The New York Times. Retrieved May 16, 2017.
  6. ^ Greene, Graham (June 19, 1936). "Dangerous/Big Brown Eyes". The Spectator. (reprinted in: John Russel, Taylor, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome. Oxford University Press. pp. 82. ISBN 0192812866.)
  7. ^ Eyman, Scott (2020). Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1501192111.
  8. ^ "Big Brown Eyes". The New Yorker.
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