No record of copyright, though allegedly copyrighted in 1953 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn picture. New York opening at the Rivoli: 29 July 1953. U.S. release: 19 June 1953. U.K. release: 13 July 1953. Australian release: 5 August 1953. 99 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Clemson Reade, who wants a wife in the home, not in business, breaks with Effie, a State Department official who is too busy with an oil crisis to have time for matrimony. Remembering a comely princess, Tarji, whom he met on a trip to Bukistan and the fact that she had been schooled from birth in the art of pleasing men, Reade proposes via cable. Because of the oil situation, the State Department steps in and assigns Effie to see that her ex-fiancé sticks to protocol in his new courtship. The princess comes to the United States, but the feminine craft of Effie soon has Tarji figuring that emancipation is more fun than being a dream wife.
COMMENT: Whatever promise this one-joke romantic comedy may have had, is negated by a conventional plot and strictly routine direction - this was the first film screenwriter Sidney Sheldon (Annie Get Your Gun, Anything Goes) directed, the first of two, the other being The Buster Keaton Story, the direction of which has even less to commend it than Dream Wife has. Doubtless Cary Grant (Sheldon was involved in the writing of Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer) had something to do with the assignment of Sheldon to this pic. Be this as it may, the direction is as stolidly unimaginative as can be, and whatever humor was in the original screenplay has been effectively smothered by Sheldon's heavy handling. Deborah Kerr, in some stunning Helen Rose costumes, looks absolutely ravishing and while she has the best of everything - clothes, camera angles, coiffure - Betta St John is also allowed to make some impression as the princess; but the two other attractive young lasses in the cast, Patricia Tiernan as Miss Kerr's secretary and Mary Lawrence as Mrs Malvine get hardly a look-in. Walter Pidgeon has virtually nothing to do and Bruce Bennett has a miniscule role. Take-any-job Grant walks through the proceedings with his usual not-too-involved air. There are a few chuckles in the script. Trimmed to 75 or even 80 minutes, it might make passable entertainment. Production values are moderate. Miss Kerr gets the lion's share of behind-the camera attention.
SYNOPSIS: Clemson Reade, who wants a wife in the home, not in business, breaks with Effie, a State Department official who is too busy with an oil crisis to have time for matrimony. Remembering a comely princess, Tarji, whom he met on a trip to Bukistan and the fact that she had been schooled from birth in the art of pleasing men, Reade proposes via cable. Because of the oil situation, the State Department steps in and assigns Effie to see that her ex-fiancé sticks to protocol in his new courtship. The princess comes to the United States, but the feminine craft of Effie soon has Tarji figuring that emancipation is more fun than being a dream wife.
COMMENT: Whatever promise this one-joke romantic comedy may have had, is negated by a conventional plot and strictly routine direction - this was the first film screenwriter Sidney Sheldon (Annie Get Your Gun, Anything Goes) directed, the first of two, the other being The Buster Keaton Story, the direction of which has even less to commend it than Dream Wife has. Doubtless Cary Grant (Sheldon was involved in the writing of Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer) had something to do with the assignment of Sheldon to this pic. Be this as it may, the direction is as stolidly unimaginative as can be, and whatever humor was in the original screenplay has been effectively smothered by Sheldon's heavy handling. Deborah Kerr, in some stunning Helen Rose costumes, looks absolutely ravishing and while she has the best of everything - clothes, camera angles, coiffure - Betta St John is also allowed to make some impression as the princess; but the two other attractive young lasses in the cast, Patricia Tiernan as Miss Kerr's secretary and Mary Lawrence as Mrs Malvine get hardly a look-in. Walter Pidgeon has virtually nothing to do and Bruce Bennett has a miniscule role. Take-any-job Grant walks through the proceedings with his usual not-too-involved air. There are a few chuckles in the script. Trimmed to 75 or even 80 minutes, it might make passable entertainment. Production values are moderate. Miss Kerr gets the lion's share of behind-the camera attention.