Kiss and Make-Up (1934)

People are voting emotionally.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Cary Grant is the famous Dr. Lamar, proprietor and doctor at a popular and very lucrative beauty clinic in Paris. The business is a huge success: Grant beautifies his patients with everything from diet and exercise advice to plastic surgery. He also sells face cream on the radio. A stylish opening sequence shows Grant entering his clinic and walking through to his office to great acclaim: everyone in the place is beautiful, everyone is smiling, and they are all delighted to see Dr. Lamar. He has a great gig. However....Personal secretary Helen Mack wishes that Grant would wake up and realize that all the women patients falling in love with him don't really know him. "It isn't you they fall for," she tells him. "It's just the trimmings."Expressing even stronger disapproval is Edward Everett Horton, a patient's husband who barges in and demands that Grant stop treating his wife-he likes her the way she is and doesn't want her beautified.Genevieve Tobin, the wife, is an extremely enthusiastic patient. When Grant finishes her treatments, he declares that she is "perfect," his greatest creation. When he further declares that he is done with her, however, Tobin notes, "He only thinks he is."From here the plot runs into a confusion of Tobin leaving Horton for Grant, while Mack does some hand-wringing and wishes that Grant would come to his senses and put his considerable skills to a more noble use. It's entertaining enough, though not really believable for a minute. Grant and Tobin do indeed look good, despite the rather obnoxious characters they play. And Helen Mack probably comes across best--at least, she plays the most appealing role. Grant sings a nice song, and appears actually to be playing the piano. Overall, it's more a curiosity than a film that works as a moral tale or even a light romance...however, if you want to see what a clinic staffed by the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1934 would look like, here's your chance.

Kiss and Make-Up (1934) ** (out of 4)Maurice Lamar (Cary Grant) is a famous plastic surgeon living in Paris where he works on making women beautiful all day long. His secretary Anne (Helen Mack) is secretly in love with him but the doctor decides to head off with the married Eve (Genevieve Tobin) who he feels is his masterpiece work. Eve's husband Marcel (Edward Everett Horton) ends up striking up a relationship with Anne and soon all four are on a crash course.KISS AND MAKE-UP is without question one of the strangest films from this era of Hollywood. It got into theaters before the Hayes Office started to come down on sexuality and the Pre-Code nature of the film is something that would probably attract people to it. I will admit that the free sexuality running through the first half of the picture was quite good and seeing Grant kiss a married woman isn't something that too many movies did back in the day.With that said, this is without a doubt a pretty bad movie on many levels. It remains slightly entertaining simply because of how weird the thing is. The first twenty-five minutes basically take place in the plastic surgeon office where we see several of the beautiful women as well as some of the ugly ones hoping to look better. Seeing Grant flirt and talk his way through the people was mildly entertaining but there's so much here that happens for no apparent reason including a meeting with an old college friend that never pays off. The blatant sexuality is a plus but things just get stranger.From here we get the weird love story with the two couples basically trading off partners for whatever reason. None of these segment, clocking in around thirty-minutes total, adds up to anything entertaining and in fact it's just downright boring. Even worse if the final five-minutes where it seems director Harlan Thompson was trying to pay homage to the Keystone Kops and it just doesn't work. To date this here was Grant's biggest role and he's fun to watch but there's no question that there's not much else. Mack and Tobin are decent in their roles but but characters are poorly written.KISS AND MAKE-UP is weird enough to where it's worth watching if you're a film buff but there's no doubt that it was Grant's worst picture up to this point in his career. With that said, he does sing a song!

What starts off as a feature variation on the Eddie Cantor song Keep Young and Beautiful from Roman Scandals quickly turns into My Baby Just Cares For Me as beauty doctor Cary Grant finds out when he breaks up the marriage of client Genevieve Tobin, marries her and learns that life with a glamour girl ain't always so glamorous. Edward Everett Horton is her ex who takes up with Grant's jilted secretary Helen Mack who loved him from afar. Pre-code in every shape and form, this features some deliciously raunchy dialog and plenty of innuendo.At first, you think that the movie is going to be a plug for Max Factor, but then it suddenly switches to an obvious crack at the obsession with beauty and the genuine ridiculousness of the industry that still obsesses today. Ugly old women yearn to look decades younger, those still young prove themselves to be shamefully materialistic and foolish. Not much has changed in 80 years! Grant gets to sing a bit and Tobin spoofs the ridiculousness of vanity with delightful tongue in cheek. Horton as usual is a delightfully funny pompous fool. Mack is noble but nobody's fool yet her pairing with Horton is never convincing. If you pick up on the parody, you'll see past the shallowness and find a handsome romantic comedy with plenty to enjoy.

Cary Grant, Genevieve Tobin, Helen Mack, and Edward Everett Horton star in "Kiss and Make Up," a 1934 film. Grant plays a popular plastic surgeon, Dr. Maurice Lamar (the film takes place in France). He falls for one of his makeovers (Tobin) who leaves her husband (Horton) and marries Lamar. Despite her looks, Lamar soon realizes he has created a monster. Meanwhile, Lamar's secretary Anne is in love with him and becomes increasingly unhappy as he seems to need her constantly but takes her for granted. Can you guess what happens? This actually is a musical with three songs, and Grant does his own singing. He must have - no one could have dubbed his awful tremolo. Other than that, he actually had a pleasant singing voice.A very slight comedy, and I was surprised to read that Carole Lombard was supposed to play the role of the secretary but turned it down. Good move. And that casting wouldn't have worked. Lombard was certainly too beautiful to have been ignored by Lamar. Mack was pretty without being an absolute knockout. Genevieve Tobin does a good job as the annoying Eve, and Horton is funny as her husband, who wants his wife's old looks and personality back.This film was really beneath Grant but he was too new to turn it down. He is perfect for the role of a handsome, dapper womanizer and is very good.See it for the young Grant, but don't expect too much.