Houseboat (1958)

Waste of time

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Yeah, it's one from the good old days, where everything is damn polished, all the jokes are so polite, and the end is always happy. But why I felt it's idiot ! The story was a well ground for a sex comedy, and with the capacities of Miss Loren it could have been super sex comedy, but nobody thought of making something like it, or else.. since as a pure comedy it has few nice moments, very few. Although Sophia's beauty is all over it however wasted. I was provoked to the extreme while the dance scene; how not to show the many talents of Sophia's marvelously voluptuous body?!! Furthermore I don't know why the heck the cinematography made her face look like a black girl ?! There isn't a problem in being black; the problem is that Sophia IS brunette. She seemed really strange and for strange reasons ! Nothing did thrill me. It was like a slow-paced play. We didn't even get the chance to see the train that hit the house ! So, accordingly, don't wait for comedy, sexy moments, or thrilling ones !The things to be watched in here : The scene of Cary Grant talking philosophically, yet beautifully, to his kid about life and death; only in the 1950s I think. At certain scenes Sophia's performance dazzled me; no wonder that she's the only seduction queen, from her era, who won an Oscar. The looks of Grant to Sophia; Oh my god, the man was in deep desperate love with her indeed. And the moment in which Sophia's butt got slapped by some drunken; now this is a dream comes true, Marilyn Monroe herself didn't give us that honor ever. I don't know how the audience received that outrageous moment back then, I may know how the male audience did though !Here's a movie that totally mistreats its idea, along with this heavy sexual charisma of a star named Sophia Loren. Enjoyable is what you can describe (Houseboat) with if only you're talking about it as a time capsule. Regardless I watched uncreative, naive and unfunny movie. Compared to it Grant and Loren's earlier movie, (The Pride and the Passion – 1957), is way more interesting; at least she danced a real *dance* there !

Cary Grant and Sophia Loren in a romantic comedy about a man who was to be divorced only to lose his wife in a car accident. She has left him with 3 precocious children. He has neglected them as he is a government official.The children are filled with love but despair. In the midst of this is Martha Hyer, Grant's sister-in-law, who has recently separated from her husband and has confessed openly that she wants Grant.In the interim, we have a lovely Sophia Loren, who wishes to break away from her conductor father. Meeting Loren by chance, the film focuses how they fall in love.Everything seems to be going on track until the children, who at first loved Cinzia, (Loren) are upset that they may be losing their dad to this marriage. Of course, we still have Hyer who nearly marries her brother-in-law.Hyer captures the same upper-class figure that she expressed so well in "Some Came Running." She received a supporting nomination the same year for the latter film.There is also a nice supporting performance by Harry Guardino as a gigolo. It is his incompetence that leads all to the houseboat.The film belongs to Grant and Miss Loren. They truly capture the feeling of a daring government employee who tries to redeem himself among his children and a woman who seeks love desperately.The film is also memorable as it depicts class status.

Cary Grant, prominent diplomat and widower, is trying to get acquainted again with his three kids, Paul Petersen, Mimi Gibson, and Charles Herbert. He's also got a sister-in-law, Martha Hyer, crushing out on him big time.But after the youngest kid, Herbert, wanders away after a concert, he meets Sophia Loren who is also running away from her conductor father, Eduardo Ciannelli. They are soul mates Herbert and Loren and before long she's moved in on the Grant family.Which is forced by circumstance I won't reveal to live on a houseboat in the woods in Maryland. The Houseboat and its many problems lend itself to a whole lot of physical problems and one rather dramatic one, when one of the kids nearly drowns. Cary gets a lot of good mileage out of the comedy.This was Cary and Sophia's second film together and it was one big improvement on the overblown Pride and the Passion. No doubt that the two of them were still involved from The Pride and the Passion lends a lot of truth in the scenes Grant and Loren play together.Also look for a nice performance by Harry Guardino who's the one who is responsible for the group being on the Houseboat.Houseboat is a nice family comedy and hasn't aged a bit from the Fifties when it was made.

This is a very cute and inconsequential family film starring Cary Grant and the very young Sophia Loren. While it is not a movie that will change your life or make a huge impression, it's still an awful lot of fun. Cary is a widower who lives on a houseboat with his kids. The trouble is that he needs a combination housekeeper and mom for the kids, so he goes about trying to hire one. He picks Ms. Loren and after a while everyone in the family succumbs to her very ample charms. Considering she was a great housekeeper (though she couldn't cook), loved the kids and was built like,....Sophia Loren, it certainly isn't surprising that by the end of the film Cary has also recognized her as prime wife material. Predictable,...yes. But who cares, as it's a lot of fun and yet another nice outing from Grant. Plus, the romance that predictably develops between them and the way the film ends is highly entertaining. While I give this movie only a 7, it is well worth seeing--deep no--but lots of fun. About the only serious negative is the REALLY annoying song that Loren sings throughout the movie. But, once again, being Sophia Loren, most audiences of the day probably weren't there to hear her singing.