Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

nomoons11 Man I wanted to like this one but by the end, I was glad it was over.This one needed a coherent script and a whole lotta tightnin'. You know what defrag'n a hard drive is right? Well this film needed some of it. There was stuff missin, outta place and in the wrong place.There are so many scenes where Grant and Rogers don't say a word and I sat watchin' thinking'.."shouldn't there be some dialog?". My guess is the screenwriter won the job from a creative writing contest. The set-up on some of these scenario's were just like.."Huh?". There was no preparation.Grant is suppose to be getting the scoop on Rogers new husband, who happens to be a closet Nazi, but you really never know if he wants the story or not. He's either following her around and then leaving her to go do some Allied broadcasts for some country, then he's back with her again...blah blah blah. Gingers Rogers gets overlooked for he comedic stuff. I find her far more enjoyable to watch in those roles than the Fred Astaire dancing stuff. (For an example see "Vivacious Lady").Man this one needed a re-write. Not an enjoyable watch.

Irie212 One of the few successful directors of an anti-Nazi comedy, Mel Brooks, said, "We want to get people laughing; we don't want to offend anybody." In "Once Upon a Honeymoon," writer/director Leo McCarey manages to fail spectacularly at both rather obvious pieces of comedy wisdom.Casting another axiom to the winds ("Brevity is the soul of wit") the movie is two hours long and must have been made in a hurry to get it into theaters on Nov. 27, 1942, less than a year after the U.S. declared war on Germany. It is full-blown anti-Nazi propaganda (with cartoon Nazis, of course, this isn't "Conspiracy") but it is twisted into a screwball comedy (and it isn't "To Be or Not to Be" either). Screwball propaganda isn't a natural genre, to say the least, but it might have worked in 1942, when Americans were humming, "Hitler has only got one ball..." But I checked contemporary reviews and found that even the New York Times' critic, the moralistic Bosley Crowther, called the movie "callous." The plot is preposterous. Kathie O'Hara (Ginger Rogers) is a Brooklyn stripper posing as a European aristocrat. He accent is on par with Keanu Reeves' as Jonathan Harker in "Dracula." (I welcome nominees for worse accents.) O'Hara has gotten herself engaged to a plutocratic German Baron (Walter Slezak), who is also a high ranking Nazi, but that fact is something she refuses believe of her wealthy Schnuckiputzi. Enter Cary Grant, playing an American journalist on the Baron's trail. Grant is the only reason to watch this cinematic casualty of war, which starts in Vienna on the very day-- oh, but this deserves its own paragraph,Ginger and the Baron are at the Hotel Imperial in Vienna when-- to her surprise, but not his-- Adolf himself appears on that hotel's balcony to cheering Austrians: Happy Anschluss! So as I sat bolt upright at the possibility of glimpsing Hitler (will an actor actually play him...?), but McCarey attempts to tickle my alert ribs instead. Here's how: Grant calls out to Rogers in another room, "Hey, Hitler's here!" Her reply: "Well, I can't see him now, I'm dressing." Laughing yet? Long story short: the Baron is the engineer behind every nation that falls to the Third Reich. Playing geographical dominoes, he topples Czechoslovakia (in Prague we witness the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich), Poland (where Ginger and Cary are mistaken for Polish Jews and, in a darkly solemn scene unlike anything else in the movie, they're to be deported to a death camp while we hear mournful Jewish hymns sung in the distance), Norway (staying with the Quislings, naturally), Holland (crash!), Belgium (ka-boom!), and finally on to Paris where Ginger becomes an American spy. "Mata O'Hara," says Grant-- a comic highlight.Hilarity does not ensue, but patriotism does, up to and including Ginger reciting the entire Pledge of Allegiance.A screwball comedy peppered with genuine Nazi atrocities. And I thought I'd seen it all from Hollywood.

edwagreen This is truly an excellent film. It has everything-comedy, drama, tragedy and a vision of what the world was like in 1942. Let's remember that when the movie was probably being made, the U.S. had not entered the war as yet.It deals with a Brooklyn stripper from Parkside Ave. who lives in 1938 Austria and is about to be married to a high-ranking Nazi. Given her supposed limited intelligence, Ginger Rogers, as this gal, doesn't fully realize what she is getting into. She will be quickly educated by reporter Cary Grant, who is terrific in this role.Walter Slezak plays the heavy in the film and at first is successful in having Ms. Rogers believe that he is an anti-Nazi. No matter where the couple show up, the country soon falls victim to the Nazi terror.The plight of the Jewish people is shown by a maid and her 2 young children, all being Jewish, is helped by Rogers. The maid comes back later on to play a pivotal role when Rogers needs to escape. There is a scene where condemned Jews recite a Jewish prayer. How much more poignant can you get?There is constant intrigue in this film as you begin to wonder the true beliefs of someone who is helping Rogers, while getting her to spy for the allies.The ending may have been somewhat over-the-top, but it did provide for some comic relief to a subject that was very well handled here.

jarrodmcdonald-1 I am going to join the ranks of those who like and appreciate this film. First, it's a different sort of film. It's not exactly geared for the common masses. Even though Ginger Rogers' character has a lower-class background, the look and feel of the film is sophisticated...that is the direction this film effort goes toward and that is the direction it maintains. The scene where Ms. Rogers and the undercover agent try on regional American accents is the high point of the film. There was a message behind that scene which says America is all these kinds of people-- the mixed heterogeneous identity of America is a reality to uphold and preserve. At one point, the film does veer from comedy to drama (the Jewish citizens flee with a phony passport). Who says a film can't change tone? It gives us a unique glimpse at the main characters when they are considered to be Jewish for awhile.