Bringing up Cary - Cary Grant

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), March, 2004 by Wes D. Gehring

Interestingly enough, the catalyst for "Affair," the final McCarey-Grant collaboration--after "The Awful Truth," "My Favorite Wife," and the darkly comic "Once Upon a Honeymoon" (1942)--rested entirely with the actor. Grunt's favorite McCarey film was "Love Affair" (1939), a classic romantic comedy starring his friend and frequent co-star Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer. Grant convinced the director to remake it so he could essay Boyer's part. McCarey's subsequent comment goes to the heart of why Grant is this reviewer's favorite actor: "The difference between 'Love Affair' and 'An Affair to Remember' is very simply the difference between Charles Boyer and Cary Grant. Grant could never really mask his sense of humor--which is extraordinary--and that's why the second version is funnier." Comedy always will be first in my pantheon of values, especially when it is spelled Cary Grant.

Wes D. Gehring, Associate Mass Media Editor of USA Today, is professor of film, Ball State University, Muncie, Ind.