The Grass Is Greener

1960 "Ever See a Four-Sided Triangle?"
6.5| 1h44m| en| More Info
Released: 23 December 1960 Released
Producted By: Grandon Productions
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Victor and Hillary are down on their luck to the point that they allow tourists to take guided tours of their castle. But Charles Delacro, a millionaire oil tycoon, visits, and takes a liking to more than the house. Soon, Hattie Durant gets involved and they have a good old fashioned love triangle.

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Edgar Allan Pooh . . . the stage play upon which it's based, but such apparently is not the case with THE GRASS IS GREENER. Except for a brief men-in-waders scene, this verbose exercise in talking sex to death might as well have been filmed on Broadway. Sure, there's a few touches of window dressing with have-and-have-not automobile comings and goings, as well as a walk-through of a couple high-ceilinged rooms. However, these scant minutes' worth of "real life" hardly provide an adequate antidote for what seems like hours of grueling repartee that may have sounded scintillating in a playwright's mind, but generally fall flat on stage, and pancake to paper thinness on a Big Screen. As a supposedly accommodating husband, Cary Grant looks particularly long-in-the-tooth, making his willingness to settle for his wife's sloppy seconds entirely reasonable (if not very convincing). However, Deborah Kerr's wayward wife "Hilary" character comes off as more gauche than a family's new mutt, who debuts by humping everyone's leg at an important dinner party. Any right-thinking household immediately would have such a nuisance pet "fixed," which is what most GRASS IS GREENER viewers will be hoping for Hilary.
T Y Odd little movie about infidelity in the 50s. It begins with the 50's most leaden homage to heteronormativity; a collage of adorable infants under the credits. I was rolling my eyes. The 50s are a tiresome heap of propaganda for reproduction and the family; resulting in dozens of rotten on-screen performances by insufferable moppets (An Affair to Remember, The Man who Knew Too Much, Picnic, etc.). But it eventually becomes a droll, sort of dirty (though very polite) piece about getting a little on the side (in 1956!!). The whole thing is too slight for the overamped starpower they've cast. By the time Cary Grant is striding into a gun duel, you might even conclude as I did, 'Wow, even Grant is miscast here.' Jean Simmons, playing a bimbo, is slumming. And she wears some hideous outfits that even Endora on Bewitched might've said No to.
howardmorley Had I gone to see this film in 1960 (when I was 14), I would have felt cheated, it was so boring, wordy and lacking action that I could hardly wait for its end.All I saw was a bunch of actors - Grant, Kerr, Mitchum & Simmons (who were in the autumn of their screen careers), mainly sitting around doing nothing in particular, making small talk endlessly about marriage, fidelity and this and that.Even for 1960 the screenplay seemed very dated and contrived while the actors drank copious quantities of liquor and alcohol.None of the characters seemed to have a useful job or do some service to society so I suspected this was the influence of the idle rich from the 1930s, but since then there had been a world war, penal taxation to help repay Britain's war debt, the need for women to do a job of work and a social revolution in Britain with the new wave of films like "Look back in Anger"; this film seemed curiously dated even for 1960.What an advert for the perils of drink and dipsomania!I noticed that the majority of the USA based user comments seemed in favour of this film while European comments were more critical.I have seen many films when each of the above actors starred individually in more worthy films but I am afraid that here too many cooks spoilt the broth.I voted it 4/10.
Jem Odewahn With a cast boasting Cary Grant, Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr AND Jean Simmons, you would expect a real treat, right? Wrong. This one is a fizzer, and utterly boring. If it wasn't for the obvious chemistry of Mitchum and Kerr (why aren't these two more recognised as one of the greatest screen teams ever), even in roles where they flounder, and Jean Simmons saving the second half single-handedly from being even worse, I would have fallen asleep. It's very English, and perhaps as an Aussie I don't "get" the humour. It's meant to be a witty take on marriage and the upper classes. There were a few nice lines, mostly delivered by Simmons, but other than that it was just a pointless talk-fest. Grant is usually one of the most watchable of all screen stars, but here he's barely noticeable. Perhaps he is keeping in character, but he just exhibits no personality here. The opening titles are cute, but what relevance do they have to anything in the film? Yeah, I pretty much hated it.