Once Upon a Honeymoon

Viewed January 8, 2021.

one of the cheekier WW2 movies actually filmed while it was occurring. rogers and grant do a pretty good job together. it starts out fairly well and ends on a strong note, but there is a bit in the middle that isn't very appealing (not much, just a bit).

Poorly paced (the actual romance mostly takes place off camera) and mostly dull. Rogers is great, but the movie gets very-serious far too often.

Cary Grant & Ginger Rogers stumbles on to an alternative Nazi world for Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942), but with those two the holes in the plot only help make it more amusing. A stab at the enemy while delivering a screwy Cary Grant charm-number with Ginger being a absolute adorable scam artist, looking for class in the wrong place. The movie doesn't quite know what direction to take, but Grant delivers Grant and Ginger delivers Ginger, and that was bizarrely amusing in a World War II setting.

It's difficult to be bored even when the tipping scales of the plot become somewhat stressful at times. It's soapboxy-er than its early blitheness suggests, and at times, because of the nonsensicality of the wildly contrived plot, the surprising downer developments initially feel mislaid before they're consistently salvaged by a highly competent group of surprisingly naturalistic and genuinely funny performers, but meets its challenges admirably when it matters.