Kino Lorber has released two of 1958’s brightest comedies, Teacher’s Pet and Houseboat, on long overdue Blu-rays.
Both films were nominated for two Oscars each. Both received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay, losing to The Defiant Ones. Teacher’s Pet was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Gig Young. Houseboat was also nominated for Best Original Song, “Almost in Your Arms (Love Song from Houseboat)” Oddly, the title song from Teacher’s Pet which had been a big hit for Doris Day wasn’t nominated, but then her songs from 1953’s Calamity Jane (“Secret Love”), and 1956’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (“Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera Sera)”) had already won recent Oscars.
Both George Seaton’s Teacher’s Pet released in April of 1958, and Melville Shavelson’s Houseboat, released in November, were examples of films in which an actor played opposite a much younger actress to the delight of critics and audiences who usually frowned on such combinations. Much was made of Audrey Hepburn appearing opposite Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina, Fred Astaire in Funny Face, and Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon, but no one complained about Doris Day playing opposite Clark Gable in Teacher’s Pet or Sophia Loren playing opposite Cary Grant in Houseboat.
Gable later starred opposite Loren in Shavelson’s forced 1960 comedy, It Started in Naples, and then starred opposite Marilyn Monroe in John Huston’s 1961 film, The Misfits in which the exertion caused his death from a heart attack at 60. Meanwhile Myrna Loy, who had been crowned Queen of Hollywood in the same 1930s contest that crowned Gable King of Hollywood, was reduced to playing Paul Newman’s alcoholic mother in Mark Robson’s 1960 film, From the Terrace. Cary Grant, on the other hand, was far more successful than Gable in his later years. Delbert Mann’s 1962 comedy, That Touch of Mink opposite Teacher’s Pet’s Doris Day and Gig Young wasn’t much better than It Started in Naples even if its romance seemed forced when he starred opposite Audrey Hepburn in 1963’s Charade as they did with her previous co-stars.
Gable had rarely appeared in comedies since his Oscar-winning role in 1934’s It Happened One Night in which he played an undercover reporter, but he is every bit as good as an undercover editor attending a night course in Day’s journalism class in Teacher’s Pet, a clever, sparkling comedy that paved the way for Day’s megahit, 1959’s Pillow Talk. Grant playing a widower with three children and Loren playing their nanny are also well matched in Houseboat despite their age difference. Grant made this one between Stanley Donen’s Indiscreet opposite Ingrid Bergman, his co-star from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1946 classic, Notorious, and Hitchcock’s North by Northwest opposite Eva Marie Saint.
1958 was a great year for on-screen comedies. It was the year of Morton DaCosta’sAuntie Mame, the biggest box-office hit of the year starring Grant’s His Girl Friday co-star, Rosalind Russell; John Ford’s The Last Hurrah with Spencer Tracy; Ronald Neame’s The Horse’s Mouth with Alec Guinness; Richard Quine’s Bell, Book and Candle with James Stewart and Kim Novak; Joseph Anthony’s The Matchmaker with Shirley Booth and Anthoy Perkins, the basis for Hello, Dolly!; Vincente Minnelli’s The Reluctant Debutante with Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall; and the aforementioned Indiscreet, among others.
It was also a great year for musical comedies including Minnelli’s Oscar-winning Gigi with Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier, Damn Yankees with Gwen Verdon and Tab Hunter, and Joshua Logan’s South Pacific with Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi, although that one is more of a musical drama than a comedy.
Still other fine 1958 films included Hitchcock’s Vertigo with James Stewart and Kim Novak, Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil with Charlton Heston and Welles, Richard Brooks’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, William Wyler’s The Big Country with Gregory Peck and Jean Simmons, Robert Wise’s I Want to Live! with Susan Hayward in her Oscar-winning role, Delbert Mann’s Separate Tables with David Niven and Wendy Hiller in their Oscar-winning roles, Philip Dunne’s Ten North Frederick with Gary Cooper and Geraldine Fitzgerald, Sidney Lumet’s Stage Struck with Henry Fonda and Susan Strasberg, and Edward Dmytryk’s The Young Lions with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift among many others. It was quite a year.
Kino Lorber has also released a Blu-ray upgrade of Robert Mulligan’s The Spiral Road, which premiered months before Mulligan’s better-known To Kill a Mockingbird in 1962.
Rock Hudson and Burl Ives are impressive as Dutch doctors fighting leprosy and the wrath of a local witch doctor in 1936 Indonesia with Gena Rowlands leading the supporting cast. Audio Commentary is provided by Film Historian Samm Deighan.
Audio Commentary on both Teacher’s Pet and Houseboat by Film Historian/Writer Julie Kirgo and Writer/Filmmaker Peter Hankoff.
Sebastian Stan was nominated for Golden Globes for his performances in the comedy, A Different Man and the biographical drama, The Apprentice. He won for A Different Man and is now nominated for an Oscar for The Apprentice. Both films are streaming on pay-per-view via Amazon Prime and both have been released on Blu-ray.
I’ve seen both. I didn’t much care for A Different Man, directed by Aaron Shimberg, though I did like the performances of Stan and co-star Adam Pearson. Leading lady Renate Reinsve, however, left me cold as Stan’s opportunist neighbor. I thought the film’s message, which is basically that you can’t tell a book by its cover, was too simplistic and took too long to make its point.
To my surprise, I found Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice to be gripping from start to finish. Stan as the future real estate magnate-turned-politician and Jeremy Strong as his mentor, the equally despotic Roy Cohn, are both richly deserving of their Oscar nominations. Maria Bakalova is also quite good as the magnate’s first wife, Ivana.
See them both, but if you only have time for one, choose The Apprentice.
Happy Viewing.
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