Cary Grant Biopic Highly Recommended by Video Librarian

The Janson Media DVD Cary Grant: The Leading Man was recommended in a recent review by Video Librarian. Part of the company's Hollywood Collection, The Leading Man recounts Grant's painful journey from his lonely working-class beginnings to the peak of Hollywood royalty through family photos, archival footage, and clips from many of his films including She Done Him Wrong, To Catch A Thief, and The Awful Truth. The film takes an honest look at all of Grant's glorious triumphs and tragic failures, giving the viewer a definitive depiction of this Hollywood icon.

An excellent overview of the life of Cary Grant, who entered the world in Bristol, England as Archibald Alexander Leach, and emigrated as a teenager to America, and later Tinsel Town itself, where he would be one of Hollywood's leading men for a remarkable span of 30 years. Described as 'debonair, sophisticated, yet human,' the program features interviews with a number of Grant's directors and co-stars (Deborah Kerr, Stanley Kramer, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Leslie Caron, etc.) which reveal the private side of a man who labored to live the public image he had created. In addition to his triumphs in the screwball comedies of Leo McCarey and Howard Hawks (The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby), clips are shown from his later suspense masterpieces done under the direction of Alfred Hitchcock (Notorious, North by Northwest). But the film also recounts his failures: several broken marriages, and a reluctance to play roles outside of the ones his public had come to admire (critical successes such as None But the Lonely Heart which didn't do well at the Box Office). An intriguing biography, originally shown on cable television, Cary Grant: The Leading Man is highly recommended. - Video Librarian

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