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Rating:  - Great price for wonderful movies!
I bought this when it was $20 because of the gold box deal, and its a definitely a bargain for what you get. I have now have 2 copies of Holiday, but I couldn't pass up getting Only Angels Have Wings, The Talk of the Town, His Girl Friday, and The Awful Truth for the price. Had I bought the others individually I would have spent somewhere near $80. Plus you get a set of vintage postcards of the movies. My only problem is that the box is a little banged up, and I wish that Amazon would do a better job of taking care of the dvd sets before the send them out.
Rating: - TWENTY FIVE STARS, if you please...
Cary Grant, Hollywood's most charismatic leading man for 40+ years, never played a supporting role once he became a star. Here are 5 early classics from Columbia, each with its own charm, each chock full of brilliant, witty dialogue. Five stars for each of these movies. Wouldn't that rate this collection 25 stars?
Rating: - The Cary Grant Box Set
This was a very good buy for the money and the shipping included. I would definitely purchase from Amazon again based on this experience.
Rating: - A great set of movies with some terrific extra features
Usually makers of a boxed set of films featuring one artist will put at least one bad or mediocre film in with the rest. This is not the case with this boxed set. All of the films are excellent, and there are featurettes included for all of the movies. Only His Girl Friday gets a commentary track though.
This is the Region 1 debut of Holiday on DVD. It pairs Katherine Hepburn with Cary Grant in a film that is a bit out of step with its time (1938) in that it ponders the wisdom of endlessly pursuing wealth at a time when such thoughts were considered almost un-American. Grant plays a man who becomes engaged to a woman and only later finds out she is the member of a fabulously wealthy family and that he, once a part of the family, will be expected to go to work in the family business and count money for the rest of his life. This is out of step with Grant's character's view on what he wants his future to be, but in step with his fiancee's sister's view of life played by Hepburn.
Extras:
Cary at Columbia featurette
Deleted Scenes Photographs
Only Angels Have Wings (1939) pairs Grant with Jean Arthur. This is a drama/romance with only a few light moments in which Grant plays a pilot and the manager of a small burgeoning South American airline. Arthur is an entertainer who meets Grant and decides he is interesting enough that she wants to know him better so she intentionally misses her boat back to the states. Add in the complication of Grant's old flame (Rita Hayworth) showing up as the wife of a disgraced pilot who is looking for a second chance, and you have the makings of a very good film.
Extras:
"Angels: Made in Heaven" featurette
The Talk of the Town (1942) is another chance for Grant to play working class hero opposite Jean Arthur. This time he is a fugitive from justice, falsely accused of torching a factory and causing the death of a factory worker. He decides to hide out in Arthur's home, but the complication is that a famous law professor (Ronald Coleman) has rented the home for the summer and wants nothing but peace and quiet while he writes a book. He winds up with anything but that. This film is a good blend of drama and comedy.
Extras:
Talking About "Talk of the Town" featurette
The Awful Truth (1937) pairs Cary Grant with Irene Dunne in a screwball comedy about a couple that divorces but finds that they really are meant for each other. They spend the whole film sabotaging both their own and each others' romances until they both realize "the awful truth". This film allows Cary to be the well-dressed sophistocate who also does some great pieces of physical comedy. The plot also involves the couple's dog, including a bit of detective work involving a tell-tale oversized hat that would make The Thin Man's Asta proud.
Extras:
In Love with Cary Grant featurette
Inside "The Awful Truth" featurette
The best known film of the bunch is probably "His Girl Friday" (1940). This pairs Grant with Rosalind Russell who plays Hildy - Grant's ex-wife and his best reporter. Hildy is leaving the paper and leaving town to become the wife of an Albany insurance agent played by Ralph Bellamy, a man who always plays it safe. Grant's character uses the approaching execution of a man who may be innocent to try and lure Hildy back to the paper and back to him. Poor Ralph Bellamy. This is the second time in this boxed set that he has played a man who obviously doesn't stand a chance against Grant's charms and cunning, the first time being in The Awful Truth.
Extras:
Commentary Track
On Assignment: "His Girl Friday" featurette
One of the featurettes mentions that among the stars of the 1930's very few seem to transcend time, and Cary Grant is one of those very few. That's because he didn't really belong to any one era. He was also very fortunate that, after a very few years making some rather mediocre films at Paramount, he was able to negotiate a contract allowing him to work for two studios - RKO and Columbia. These are indeed some of his finest films while at Columbia, and the set is very much worth checking out.
Rating: - Five of Grant's best in one attractive package
The problem with some DVD box sets is that there's usually a film or two included that you could very well do without or perhaps would not even like in your film collection. No such problem with the simply named "The Cary Grant Box Set" which includes five movies that are all among Grant's very best. That alone makes this a must-have for Grant fans. So the featurettes, the vintage replica movie postcards and the overall attractive packaging are bonuses -- significant ones at that.
The films feature such wonderful leading ladies as Jean Arthur (twice) Rosalind Russell, Irene Dunne and the incomparable Katherine Hepburn. Hepburn appears in "Holiday" directed by George Cukor, a depression era film that skewers the upper class. Grant plays Johnny Case an up and coming young business man who thinks more of exploring life than of making money. He finds himself in love with the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur but it is soon obvious that he has more in common with the girl's sister. Lew Ayers turns in a memorable performance as the brother, a philosophizing drunk.
"Only Angels Have Wings" offers a very different Grant, this time playing a the leader of a crew of daring mail pilots in South America. Here Jean Arthur is the love interest though a lovely young Rita Hayworth offers competition. Thomas Mitchell is part of a stellar cast directed by the great Howard Hawks.
"Talk of the Town" is to me one of the most underrated films of all time. Grant is Leopold Dilg a labor activist framed for a factory bombing. After escaping from jail he hides out in the bucolic summer home of an old childhood friend played by Jean Arthur. The catch is that she's renting the home to one of America's leading legal minds a supreme court candidate played by Ronald Coleman. There is comedy, the inevitable romance and a good deal of politics in this surprisingly thought provoking film directed by George Stevens.
Grant is again directed by Hawks but this time in a classic screwball comedy in "His Girl Friday." This remake of "Front Page" introduced the concept of rapid fire overlapping dialogue, principally between Grant and co-star Russell who play a former husband and wife team that doubled as a newspaper reporting dynamic duo. Grant would like them back together again but Russell and a would-be second husband played by Ralph Bellamy have other ideas. Grant is diabolical and hilarious as he manipulates events around a forthcoming execution in an effort to get the girl and the story. Among the laughs, "His Girl Friday" also has a points to make about corruption, media and justice.
"The Awful Truth" starring Grant and Dunne is straight screwball as the two stars play a divorcing married couple that maybe doesn't really want to separate. Leo McCarey directed this fast paced romp, poor old Ralph Bellamy is again Grant's hapless foil.
In the unlikely event I'm sent to a desert island that has a DVD player and can only bring a few DVD sets, this one is coming with me. In any event this box set should find itself on the the shelves of any Cary Grant fan.
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