MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

vincentlynch-moonoi Cary Grant is my favorite actor, but this is not my favorite Grant film. For most of the film, Grant plays a character you can't like -- a perpetual liar and fraud...not that he's not classy...although perhaps the better term would be slick. That's not to say his performance is anything but excellent, but it's simply difficult to want to like this thug who is willing to avoid the draft by taking a dead man's identity and sell out his country's best interests in the middle of World War II.Of course, late in the film he is transformed into a more noble character...because he falls in love. Of course, he must suffer...so he is shot in the gut and forced to leave behind the first real love of his life...to go into the Merchant Marines. But, of course, this is Hollywood, so on a foggy night she comes waiting for him at the pier...and they are reunited. It sounds corny, and it is...but it works.The best surprise in this film is not Cary Grant's acting. No surprise there...he's always good to great. But his costar -- Laraine Day -- turns in a fine performance as the high society do-gooder that falls in love with Mr. Lucky. There are some fine character actors here, as well, and each plays his or her part well: Charles Bickford, Gladys Cooper, Alan Carney, the venerable Henry Stephenson, and Paul Stewart.As I said, it's a good movie, but far from Grant's best. Very watchable, but in my view, not one for the DVD shelf.

bkoganbing Along similar lines to Suspicion, dapper Cary Grant plays a gambler confidence man with two problems that he solves in what he thinks is a masterstroke. The army is out to draft him so he has another crook with high blood pressure, Paul Stewart, pose as him at the draft physical. He also takes the name of a dead Greek sailor on a gambling boat that was raided. Of course when it turns out that the sailor had a lengthy criminal record including three felony convictions, that's not so good.On to a big score however. Grant offers his services to a war relief committee that is run by Park Avenue dowagers like Gladys Cooper and Florence Bates with the idea of doing a Las Vegas Night and stealing the take. Of course when pretty Laraine Day who's also involved in the committee comes on the scene, Grant reassesses himself. Especially after he gets a letter for the dead Greek sailor and has Greek Orthodox priest Vladimir Sokoloff translate it.MGM did a similar story about a draft dodger in For Me and My Gal which was Gene Kelly's debut film. That one was a good deal lighter than Mr. Lucky yet the plot line about being redeemed by the love of a good woman is the same.Mr. Lucky was one of RKO's biggest hits that year and it's clear that they knew what they were doing by not letting Cary Grant remain a heel. Try as he may, Grant had a lot of difficulty in getting studios to see him as anything other than the good guy. Eventually he surrendered to studio wishes, whatever studio it was.Besides those mentioned, Mr. Lucky also has good performances by Charles Bickford as the boat captain and amateur surgeon who saves Grant's life and by Alan Carney as Grant's driver and man Friday. It's definitely worth a look when next on TCM.

nmarshi Unavailable on DVD, but found on VHS at Blockbuster, "Mr Lucky" is a Cary Grant vehicle, even more than a morale boosting, "keep the homes fires burning" war movie. Grant gets to play a wide range of roles here: fashion plate, grifter, romantic lead, war hero and (most notably) knitter of sweaters. Look, I've seen them all: North By Northwest, Bringing Up Baby, To Catch A Thief, and on and on.This has many moments that match the very best that Cary Grant had on offer. Most notably, there's an extended sequence of Grant riffing in Cockney to Laraine Day. Now Cary Grant liked to identify himself as a Cockney (which is usually termed as an East Londoner), but here he gets the rare opportunity in his movie career to play one (also in Gunga Din), and when asked where he picked up the rhyming slang that makes Cockney so annoying (charming to Americans) he says: Australia ! Ah Hollywood... You've also got to admire the sartorial splendor which Cary maintains throughout the film, even though he 's supposedly a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks who left home at nine. Apparently there's a finishing school on Skid Row, and Cary was voted Best Dressed. Of course, one of the perverse running gags of "Mr Lucky" is that our hero wears absurdly garish ties, and does not know how to tie a Windsor knot. All he needs is Laraine Day to bring him the appropriate conservative necktie to complete him. Bless him he fights her off ... On a fifth viewing (over a lifetime), I have to admit the last twenty minutes drips with melodramatic sentiment out of step with our modern times (hey, I still tear up-don't tell anyone) but this is still a classic: funny, fast paced, easy on the eyes, and with a great supporting cast.

theowinthrop It's entertaining enough to sit through, and it offers a light on a problem that would forever plague it's leading man, but let us face facts: MR. LUCKY was a World War II moral boosting propaganda film, and as such it is dated. It is set in a mindset for 1942/43 when the actual destiny of the war effort was unresolved, and an Axis victory was still possible. Keeping that in mind we can forgive the character change that the script forces - but posterity lost a second chance of seeing Cary Grant play a rat.After his quasi-rat wastrel Johnny Aysgard in SUSPICION, Grant made the film TALK OF THE TOWN with Ronald Colman and Jean Arthur. His character of Leopold Dilg is suspected of arson/possibly felony murder, but we realize that he is being railroaded by Charles Dingle on those charges. A few years passed and in 1943 Grant agreed to play Joe Adams, gambler and con man, who decides to get involved in the charity racket to make a real killing. And I am sure that Grant chose the part because Joe was a rat - as bad and violent in his way as Johnny was in his.We see this in Joe early on - he has to raise some capital for his scheme, and goes to collect the money that is owed to him. As always Grant is dapper and soft spoken, but here he demonstrates what is underneath all this: his Joe gets the money by beating up the man who owes it. To make the scene more effective, we never see Grant beat the man, but the scene is shot from the legs down, where the man is whimpering on the ground and willing to give up the money. It was a unique moment in the film, only duplicated towards the end when Grant kicks his partner in the face in a final confrontation about the swindle. That is shown performed by Grant - far more visibly than the first scene.Yet the effect of this violence is shattered by changes in the screenplay. Grant's Joe meets the capable and suspicious Dorothy Briant (Laraine Day) at the organization that is creating the charity. She is antagonistic to him at the start, but subsequently they fall in love. At the same time one of her assistant/friends is "Swede" (Charles Bickford), and he starts working on Joe's conscience regarding the war effort and the need of the money for the purposes it is supposed to push. So when Grant beats up his partner he is actually doing it to prevent their plans for the theft of the charity money to come to fruition.Again the studio (RKO again) and the actor's agent refused to countenance a negative image for Grant. So we have to be satisfied with two scenes where Grant uses his muscles to beat people up. One should be thankful for small favors - Grant would try again in 1944 when he appeared in NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART to play a criminal type, but there too the screenplay would prevent him from playing a total rat again.