SnoopyStyle Young siblings David, Elizabeth, and Robert are trying to come to terms with their mother's death. They are forced to live with their estranged father Tom Winters (Cary Grant) in Washington, D.C. At a concert festival, Robert gets lost and befriended by Cinzia Zaccardi (Sophia Loren). She comes after fighting with her overbearing conductor father. The kids force Tom to hire her as their new maid. Their vacation starts badly when their house is run over by a train. They're given an old houseboat instead.There're a lot of slapping for a romance movie and they're no small swipes. It's a little slower at first. With the arrival of Loren into the group, the movie picks up with more comedy. I'm not sure if Loren and Grant had other rom-coms. His straight-laced and her exotic presence make for a good on-screen pairing although their off-screen pairing may have been more dramatic. It's an interesting what-if in Hollywood casting.

elshikh4 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 !

T Y When I first stumbled across a movie title 'Houseboat' a thousand years ago, and saw the casting, I speculated that it could only be a euro-tweaked piece of frisson, OR a vapid, one-idea dud. Sadly I learned an hour ago, that it's the latter.This is the "Please Don't Eat the Daisies variety of wholesome family corn. It's irritating and crappy from the first frames. The story is a saccharine homily. Dad loses mom in an accident and hires a hot nanny. I give you 11 seconds to figure out that mommy replacement is the agenda. Is there any other way that storyline can go? (See The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Sound of Mucus, King and I). The script is quite rotten. The direction is very horrible, with dollars visibly saved by getting 90 percent of the movie in the can via rear-screen projection.We gave up the conceits of noir in the 40s, for this?; 1950's commie-hating, child-obsessed, nuclear-familifying propaganda? Like everything from the 50s, Houseboot tries to naturalize your patriotic duty to reproduce via the inclusion of major roles for children, despite the fact that very few children can act (See also: The King and I, An Affair to Remember, South Pacific, Man who Knew Too Much). And the unwelcome "dad's a jackass around kids" routine rears its ugly head.The movie starts weird with twee, hand-drawn credits showing one of the movies moppets sulking and walking in circles on the floor, while the color process switches inexplicably between tints... weird. Then it starts running the film backwards and forwards. Hmmm, OK then. Loren looks bizarre, shaded down to Indian tones, and made up like a voluptuous cat; she looks like she may eat the children at any moment. Just like everything else in this movie, her part is written for maximum irritation (she sings a stupid song over and over) and she generally demonstrates why Italians are absent in Hollywood for the next 5 decades.

imbluzclooby For those who still have the hopeless romantic side to them still kindling, and for those who are not totally cynical about predictable outcomes, Houseboat is decent fun. Cary Grant repeating his romantic comedy work for the umpteenth time, works well with the ravishing and radiant Sophia Loren. Given they were thirty years apart, Grant and Loren were in a pretty heavy romance off screen at this time. Their chemistry is evident and it shows well here. Harry Gaurdino has a good and humorous supporting role. It cracks me up when movies of the 50's portrayed Italian women as fiery and impulsive. It's done that way a bit here as well with Loren, except the script offers her character a bit more warmth and depth. Hollywood stereotypes of Italians have improved until "The Sopranos" came along forty years later. Houseboat is just a cute movie that is worth watching to fill in time. And if you are a fan of either star, it will be that much better.