Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

"You've been taken to the cleaners, and you don't even know your pants are off."

Jim Blandings (Grant) is a successful advertising executive.  He and his wife Muriel (Loy), and his two daughters Joan (Moffett) and Betsy (Marshall), live in a cramped apartment in New York City.  Muriel wants to hire an interior decorator to redesign the interior of the apartment, and consults family friend and lawyer Bill Cole (Douglas) to make sure their finances can handle the expense.  Jim is livid and decides that the better decision is to purchase a home in Connecticut.  They find a historic old home, fall in love with it, and purchase it, despite the protestations of Bill.

The home is over 200 years old and in serious need of renovations.  They plan to do renovations to turn it into their dream home.  They soon learn that the home is not structurally sound and all of their experts advise them to tear it down and build from scratch.  They hire architect Mr. Simms (Denny) to service the building of their home, but nothing goes as planned.  Meanwhile, Jim is given the job of designing a new slogan for "WHAM" Brand Ham, a task that has destroyed the careers of the last few executives.  He is also concerned that Muriel is having an affair with Bill.  Can Jim and Muriel really have it all?


As I have previously state, Cary Grant is one of my favorite actors, and I have been enjoying watching his films, especially his comedies.  This film is marked as a comedy, but heavily embraces reality.  And despite the decades since it's release, the struggle of home ownership (specifically building a home of your own), is still very accurate.

Grant is at his befuddled best as Jim Blandings, constantly confused by the woman in his life and the entire process that he has gotten into.  I enjoy Myrna Loy, especially in the The Thin Man films (After the Thin Man and Another Thin Man).  However, in this film she is smidge annoying and unlikeable.  There are moments when she is funny, but overall I was not amused.  The daughters, played by Sharyn Moffett and Connie Marshall, are entertaining, although I don't think they went on to do many other films.  Melvyn Douglas rounds out the main cast as their overly pessimistic friend, who is also the voice of reason throughout.  He gets some of the best lines.

The film still holds up well after all of these years.  It is still funny and a comedy classic.

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) 94 minutes
Director: H.C. Potter
Starring: Cary Grant as Jim Blandings
Myrna Loy as Muriel Blandings
Melvyn Douglas as Bill Cole
Reginald Denny as Simms
Sharyn Moffett as Joan Blandings
Connie Marshall as Betsy Blandings
Louise Beavers as Gussie
Ian Wolfe as Smith
Harry Shannon as Tesander