Springtime in Paris: Charade

On May 8, 2025May 8, 2025 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized10 Comments

Hello everyone!! Welcome to week six of our Paris film journey! Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I wanted fun and whimsy and beauty this spring, and although an actual trip to Paris in the spring would be better, a film journey will have to do.

This was our final week viewing movies set in Paris, and I feel like we saw six very different stories. It was fantastic, and I had so much fun!

Our final movie was Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.

I was very excited about this movie! I love both of these actors, and I could not wait to see them on screen together. I didn’t know what to expect at all, and I can guarantee you had I thought about it, I would never have imagined this movie and dynamic.

First, let’s see how Rotten Tomatoes sums it up. “After Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) falls for the dashing Peter Joshua (Cary Grant) on a skiing holiday in the French Alps, she discovers upon her return to Paris that her husband has been murdered. Soon, she and Peter are giving chase to three of her late husband’s World War II cronies, Tex (James Coburn), Scobie (George Kennedy) and Gideon (Ned Glass), who are after a quarter of a million dollars the quartet stole while behind enemy lines. But why does Peter keep changing his name?”

Hmm where to begin! First, this cast was pretty spectacular. Besides our two leads, we have Walter Matthau, James Coburn, and George Kennedy. I don’t think I had ever seen any of those men young before so that was interesting in itself! James Coburn was terrifying, honestly, as Tex. There was a scene where he had Hepburn’s character, Reggie, trapped, and was flicking lit matches at her and it was very creepy! It was a well shot scene, and Coburn played menacing very well.

This movie was crazy and all over the place and I liked the chaos. Hepburn and Grant meet while she is on vacation in the Alps, and they have a strange conversation about divorce and views and are they now friends, etc. She has already stated that she is planning to divorce her husband, as neither of them love each other, so when she returns home and learns her husband is dead, she is not super upset over it. She is a bit confused, as she doesn’t know why anyone would want to kill him, or why he would have chosen to sell everything in their apartment, or where the money from that sale is. Which is the point of the movie. Just where is that money, because everyone wants it.

Hepburn’s character is that of a cute little imp, slightly scattered and irreverent, silly, yet she has a pretty important job as a simultaneous translator. She meets with all of these different men, Walter Matthau of the CIA, Jacques Marin of the Paris police (who was also in How to Steal a Million), the men who knew her husband during the war, and while she takes them seriously, there is also an air of.. je ne sais quoi about her. She is hard to describe and summarize, which I enjoyed.

She cracked me up in her pursuit of Grant’s character. It was very cheeky on her part, and he seemed to do his best to hold her at bay, in his own goofy way. I read online that this was Grant’s last role as a leading man, as he felt weird about the age gap, and that they actually changed the script around so that Hepburn was chasing Grant, rather than Grant chasing Hepburn. They felt it would be more palatable to the viewers. There is one scene where Hepburn “traps” Grant in her hotel room by trickery, and that scene might have been slightly off putting if done differently. First, if Grant had done that to her, it would have come off very differently to the audience; in this scene though, it was more like two kids playing, and that was because of how the two treated it. Hepburn slammed the door shut and laughed and Billy and I had a chuckle because it reminded us of The Count Van Count from Sesame Street laughing, and the expression on her face was very open and just like it seemed, like “ha ha ha”. Grant’s character took it in stride and handled the whole thing in a very goofy way as well, by showering in his suit.

I thought their dynamic was just so playful and friendly in this movie. I think it was obvious that the two enjoyed each other’s company in a platonic way, that they were just good friends having a lark, and that this was all good fun for them. I enjoyed just watching the two of them interact much more than I cared about where the money was or who the killer was or figuring out the mystery.

The two remained friends throughout their lives. I found this on the Christie’s website, and it just seems so perfect.

Hepburn and Grant met for the first time in a Paris restaurant just before filming began on Charade, introduced by their mutual friend and director Stanley Donen. Audrey, admitting she was terribly nervous, knocked over a bottle of red wine, staining Grant’s cream suit. Donen wrote the funny incident into the film, when Hepburn as Reggie accidentally tosses a scoop of ice cream onto Grant’s jacket. Like all Hepburn’s leading men, with the possible exception of Bogart, Grant was instantly charmed by her, telling a reporter after filming All I want for Christmas is another movie with Audrey Hepburn.

As evidenced in Grant’s playful letter, the co-stars remained affectionate friends. Years after Grant’s death in 1986, Hepburn reminisced Cary – such a lovely souvenir in my life… He had me down flat the minute he met me. I think he understood me better than I did myself.

And I have wandered a bit away from the movie itself, but that is ok, right?

And that my friends, is a wrap on Springtime in Paris! I hope that you have enjoyed it as much as I have. Thank you to everyone who has commented and watched and posted along with us! I have enjoyed reading your thoughts on these movies!!

Did you watch? What do you think of this movie? Feel free to comment and/or link up with us!

Thank you again everyone!

Comfy Cozy Cinema: Arsenic and Old Lace

On September 28, 2023September 28, 2023 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn classic movie impressions, Comfy Cozy Cinema7 Comments

Hello all! Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I love to buddy watch movies together – even though I am in Michigan and she is in Pennsylvania! We don’t literally watch together in a watch party, although that might be fun one time! We wanted our fall list to feel fall cozy, move into some more chilling movies, than turn cozy again for November.

This week we started our slide into slightly more scary – or creepy maybe – with Arsenic and Old Lace.

That’s right, we joined back up with our old pal Cary Grant! Seriously, did this man make a bad movie, ever? Even this madcap crazy movie was a masterpiece!

So. I usually like to recap because for some reason I find it fun. This week, I think I will skip that because there is just way way too much for me to do that. Criterion describes it well:

Frank Capra adapted a hit stage play for this marvelous screwball meeting of the madcap and the macabre. On Halloween, newly married drama critic Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant, cutting loose in a hilariously harried performance) returns home to Brooklyn, where his adorably dotty aunts (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair, who both starred in the Broadway production) greet him with love, sweetness . . . and a grisly surprise: the corpses buried in their cellar. A bugle-playing brother (John Alexander) who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, a crazed criminal who’s a dead ringer for Boris Karloff (Raymond Massey), and a seriously slippery plastic surgeon (Peter Lorre) are among the outré oddballs populating Arsenic and Old Lace, a diabolical delight that only gets funnier as the body count rises.

Where do I start with this one?! I guess first, my expectations, of which I had none. Before we watched it, Billy and I were remembering how our high school put this on as a play and it was a really big deal, although we don’t know why, and Billy as an art student there had to create posters to advertise it. That was the extent of our knowledge. I also knew that Cary Grant was in it.

Once we started it and the opening credits began to run, I knew, knew in my bones, that I was going to love this movie. All the vintage Halloween art, be still my heart! I had no idea this was actually a Halloween movie!! Joy on my Sunday-Monday Post said that she used to watch this movie every Halloween while waiting for trick or treaters and I think that is a perfect tradition that I may steal one day. Right now we are in the trick-or-treat gang and I have a few years before we are back to handing out candy.

Every single actor in this movie was superb. Cary Grant seemed to be having an absolutely fantastic time, like literally just having the best time making this movie, and his facial expressions were hilarious. I mean, I get that his character was slowly losing it and unraveling as the movie goes on, due to the crazy things that keep popping up and his need to protect his sweet yet murderous aunts, but as a real person, I think Cary Grant was having a good time.

The two little dotty aunts made me laugh too, especially Abby with her bouncy little walk. They were so darn sweet and cute, and so completely open about their “mercy” killings of lonely old men. Peter Massey as the menacing Jonathan was pretty darn scary sometimes, and Teddy was a hoot. Charge!!!!!

However, Peter Lorre was my favorite. I loved him in this. I often love him in movies but this one in particular, he just kept making me giggle with his deliveries. Peter Lorre plays Dr. Einstein, the sidekick and personal plastic surgeon to the ominous Karloff-esque Jonathan, who is responsible for Jonathan looking er..similar..to Frankenstein’s Monster. He claims that he had just watched that movie (although it is never named) when performing plastic surgery on Jonathan, and was intoxicated, leaving Jonathan looking like Karloff. The joke is rooted in the fact that on stage in the play, Karloff played that role, and Capra was not able to get him for the movie version.

Anyway, back to Peter Lorre. He was priceless. When Teddy shows him a photo, and points out a man who is supposed to be Dr. Einstein, Peter Lorre’s reply to Teddy is “My how I’ve changed,” in that Lorre way. To which Teddy points out to him, that photo hasn’t happened yet. Because that is the type of movie this is, totally crazy and off the wall. Or another scene, where the lights are out, and things are happening that we can’t quite see, and we know the characters are scattering or hiding, and we hear Lorre say, “Where am I? Oh hear I am” and he pops up out of the infamous window seat, that has been integral to hiding dead bodies all evening. Then finally, another part that made me giggle, was another conversation between him and Teddy, when Teddy is going to show him Panama, and Peter Lorre looks back and says “Well bon voyage!”

Which brings us to the basement, or Panama, as it is sometimes referred to. The basement full of 13 bodies, 12 of which were put there by the aunts, 1 by Jonathan and Dr. Einstein. It’s easy to forget throughout this movie that there are actually dead bodies buried in the basement! These people who seem so funny and kooky are actually crazy murderers. Grant’s character Mortimer Brewster feels a responsibility to protect his crazy aunts, who he had previously thought charitable women who were entirely sane. Perhaps the only sane people in his family other than him! He actually uses this as an argument to his new bride, Elaine, who lives right across the foggy cemetery from his family’s mansion home, that he can’t be married to her. They should have been on their way to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon; instead he is trying to coordinate getting Teddy into an institution to take to the fall for the bodies to keep his aunts off the hook. Anyway, he tells Elaine that insanity is simply rampant in the Brewster family, that doesn’t just run in the family, it practically gallops. Therefore, he shouldn’t marry. The family is just too insane.

This movie reminded me so much of Clue, and Billy and I wondered if Arsenic and Old Lace served as a bit of inspiration for parts of Clue, especially Tim Curry’s portrayal of Wadsworth. We thought he had to have taken some cues from Cary Grant’s Brewster! The faces, the physical comedy, the slowly losing it as things got wilder. The people coming in and out, the hiding of bodies – like no sir, there are no bodies in the study…or in this movie’s case, no sir, there are not 13 bodies in the basement. The aunts also made me think of the aunts in Practical Magic, even though they were less murderous in Practical Magic. A lot less murderous.

This movie was crazy, kooky, zany, and dark. The actors were phenomenal, especially Grant and Lorre. I laughed, I never knew what was coming, I was fascinated. I loved the set, the plot – just everything about it, honestly!

Next week is sort of wide open! It is either a wild card watch for Lisa and I, where we watch something independently and post about it, or a break week. However, I think we are both planning on Wild Card! If you are watching along with us, you can post the link to your cozy or creepy movie post of your choice, or just take a break week! It’s up to you!

For Lisa’s impressions, pop on over to her blog post here!

If you are linking up this week, slap your link down below! I would love to see your thoughts! And if not, it’s cool to just chat in the comments section!

You can find our movie watch schedule here!

I hope you enjoyed this post, and until next time, stay cozy!

The Spring of Cary Grant: Notorious

On June 8, 2023June 8, 2023 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn the spring of cary grant13 Comments

So when Lisa at Boondock Ramblings told me she was going to do a Spring of Cary Grant, I knew I wanted in on it. She introduced me to the legend that is Grant last fall, and I am woefully behind on his films. So I am tagging along on her journey, posting along with her as well. Katja from Breath of Hallelujah is also posting with us as well!

This was it – the last in our Spring of Cary Grant series. From having never watched a Cary Grant movie up until last fall, I feel like now I am so very familiar with his range and his work. I have watched him woo women, catch thieves, clown around and be silly, work for the government, and be positively creepy as well. This one – this one had a different feeling all together. I feel like in all the roles I have seen him in, I have never watched him act so – detached and emotionless. That wasn’t his fault, it was the role he was playing, that of a no nonsense American agent. He is charged with getting Ingrid Bergman, Alicia Huberman, the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy, to help him infiltrate a group of “Germans” who are living in Rio. I feel fairly confident in saying that this movie never said the word Nazi, but that is what they were looking for.

Anyway, Huberman is supposedly perfect for the infiltration into the group – poor Alicia. That is all I can say. Her life has been determined by the men around her it seems at all times. She has to deal with the fall out from her father’s history and trial, and now she is being pretty much pressed into service for the country when she really doesn’t want to. Devlin convinces her by playing a recording of her and her father arguing, and with her claiming she loves her country, America. She reluctantly agrees.

While waiting for the assignment to go through, Devlin and Huberman fall in love, despite Devlin seeming to also loathe her, and her former promiscuity and drinking. She has been a “new woman” the last week or so, not drinking or sleeping around, yet he slams her telling her that she will eventually go back. She looks so upset as she asks why he just can’t believe in her, and I agree, that would be nice and he really shouldn’t be so judgy and blunt, she has some pretty serious trauma to work through, but I guess it has only been a week.

The assignment comes and Huberman is supposed to use her feminine wiles to work her way into the group via Alex Sebastian, played by Claude Rains. Devlin has information that Sebastian has been infatuated with Huberman for a long time, which is gross because it sounds like she was a child perhaps when they met, since she later thanks Sebastian for overlooking her bratty years. Anyway, Devlin tells Huberman about this assignment and she wants to know if he spoke up for her, telling them that no, that is not something she could do, wanting him to show her that he loved her. He has never told her that he loves her, not then and not earlier, despite them having the longest kissing scene in the movies for that time. I’ll talk about that in a bit, it was interesting!

So Huberman and Devlin contrive a way for Huberman to literally catch Sebastian’s eye, it works, and he woos her and she lets him. She mentions later to Devlin at one of their info dumps where she reports in to him what she has seen, including the removal of a man from a dinner party after he totally freaks out after spotting a wine bottle and it is heavily implied that he is killed for being a weak link on his way home, that Devlin can add Sebastian to her list of “playmates”. You know she wants him to act jealous or something to show he cares, but nada. Later on, Sebastian proposes, and when Huberman tells Devlin and the American agency, they encourage her to do it, although she is secretly desiring Devlin to tell her not to. But she does it, probably to make Devlin happy. So now she is married to a pretty bad dude who has seemed to have been infatuated with her even as a child or young person. He also has a weird relationship with his mother, which hints of Psycho another Hitchcock film. His mom is always embroidering, and every time I saw her in the background, sewing away, it made me think of Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities and her constant knitting of the names about to be killed. (foreshadow, foreshadow)

Devlin needs to look at the wine cellar because that info about the wine bottle made them awfully suspicious. He and Huberman manage to work it out, and I won’t do a play by play on this part because I thought this part was very well executed and it should be watched. Despite all of their best efforts however, Sebastian figures out that Huberman is working with American agents and he goes to mommy to report it. He wants to just off her since once his friends find out, he is a dead man walking. His mom however tells him no, no, it needs to be more subtle, so no one suspects anything. She suggests a mysterious lingering illness, and the two (or maybe just her!) begin to poison Huberman.

Huberman pieces it all together but it is too late – she is too weak to get away and they also remove her phone from her room so she can’t make any calls. After she misses a week of meetings with Devlin, the agency is like wow she must be on a real bender, but Devlin is like no, I thought she was drunk when I last saw her but now in retrospect I think she was ill. Too bad he couldn’t believe in her sooner guys! He goes to the Sebastian residence to check on her, finds her laying there severely ill and on the verge of death probably, and ….. you will have to watch to see the end. I am just not saying. It was the best part in this movie. Although I have lots of thoughts so if you have seen it and want to chat with me about it in the comments feel free.

Now, I mentioned the “notorious” kissing scene!

At the time, kisses were to be no longer than three seconds. Well Hitchcock got around those pesky censors, and created a kissing scene that was 3 minutes long, but made up of kisses that only last a few seconds at a time. The two kissed, nuzzled, cuddled, continued little kisses in the midst of conversation, even a telephone call, and this stretched into a three minutes long scene where it was quite obvious there was obviously something between these two….

Jokes aside, it was a great scene, well executed by all involved.

Overall, this was probably my least favorite that we watched. I felt so terrible for Ingrid Bergman the entire movie, and I felt like Cary Grant was a little too stiff and blah despite the kissing scene. I think this was more of an Ingrid Bergman movie, with Cary Grant also starring in it. She just stole this movie from everyone, which in a movie where a woman is ultimately always at the mercy of men, was fantastic irony. Or was it?

Anyway, just my two cents, early in the morning as I drink my first cup of coffee and reflect on this film.

I absolutely loved participating in Spring of Cary Grant with Lisa and Katja. We watched so many good movies, and I think there was only one I didn’t care for out of them all. I still can’t tell you my favorite! Cary Grant is very swoony and I can see why he was a leading man for so long. Plus his acting range is amazing, he could literally pull off any role.

And that’s a wrap folks!

Updated to add: I did not hate this movie. And I remember after the coffee started working that there was one of his movies I disliked more. However, this one was not one of my favorites. I just felt so angry and upset on Bergman’s behalf! She was a very sympathetic character to me.

To see Lisa’s thoughts, visit her here. For Katja, visit her here.

My Sunday-Monday Post

On May 28, 2023 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized35 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

Hello everyone! I hope you are all enjoying your weekend so far! We did so much yard work yesterday that Billy and I are feeling it this morning. Lol. Wyatt had a blast though, playing in the yard while we worked and we had a great time out there together. This morning though, I might need an extra cup of coffee to get moving again.

So this week is a bit weird. Tomorrow is a holiday here in the States, and we are having some family over in the afternoon. Then Tuesday and Wednesday we have Wyatt’s overnight EEG at the hospital. I can never read in the hospital plus I will be trying to keep Wyatt entertained because keeping an 8 year old who feels fine confined to a hospital room is not fun, especially when they are hooked up to wires. And it will be just me and Wyatt for most of the day, since Billy will be working. He will joins us after work for the overnight part, but the daytime hours will just be Wyatt and I. Sleeping is bit hard too for kiddo. I saw this meme on the IG account Epilepsy Memetherapy and it is so true.

Read Last Week:

I REALLY wanted to read this book and I was hoping my hold would come in, so I was sort of avoiding reading anything in case it did. And on Wednesday, it came in! I practically raced to the library to pick it up, and it was definitely worth waiting for. It is a short, fast read, and I read it literally in one day. I LOVED it. I can’t wait to read more T. Kingfisher. It was both creepy and funny – the main character has a sense of humor very close to my own and I just couldn’t stop reading it.

Reading This Week:

I am not sure how much I will get to read this week! I do have a book all ready though in case I do get some time.

I also have a giant photo book to flip through.

Posted Last Week:

The Spring of Cary Grant: Operation Petticoat

Wednesday Morning Coffee Catch Up

The Spring of Cary Grant: Suspicion

Watching and Listening:

We have been watching the same things that we have been – Brokenwood and When Calls the Heart. Last night we changed things up though and watched Dungeons and Dragons, which was actually really good. It was just really fun and made me laugh out loud at certain parts. Chris Pine was great in his role, as was Hugh Grant!

As for listening, I have been listening to True Crime again after a long break. I am catching up on Morbid, Redhanded, and Going West. There was even a Morbid/Redhanded collab!

I am saving all my favorite YouTube channel updates for the hospital. Once Wyatt falls asleep Billy and I put on our headphones and watch stuff on our phones so we don’t wake him up. I will be watching lots of Darling Desi, Dainty Diaries, With Love Kristina, Alexis Dahl, It’s a Charming Life, and The Rambling Rose.

And that is from around here! I hope all is well in your world!

The Spring of Cary Grant – Suspicion

On May 25, 2023May 25, 2023 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn the spring of cary grant12 Comments

This is double Cary week for me, since I got behind on the actual blogging part! But hey, look at me on time this week! Woohoo!

This week’s feature was Suspicion, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. Warning: This post will more than likely include some spoilers.

This was Grant like I had never seen him before, as a villain rather than a hero. And he played the role insanely well.

Johnnie Aysgarth (Grant) and Lina McLaidlaw (Fontaine) meet by “chance” on a train. I have that in quotes because by the end of the movie I was suspicious of everything that had happened! Johnnie sweets talks Lina into covering the rest of his first class ticket as he only has a third class ticket but has moved into her train car. Lina is sort of bookish, which we know because they constantly remind us of this by showing her wearing glasses and being very meek. Lina becomes instantly enamored of the charming Johnnie, and has a hard core crush. She sees him a week later at a hunt, he sees her, he pursues her, much like the hounds do the foxes, driving her from her den, where she is quietly reading and he arrives with some pushy society ladies and they all go to church. But then they actually don’t. Johnnie and Lina go for a walk, where he unbuttons her top button (whoa what the heck) and she gets a little feisty. Good for you girl. He also decides he is going to call her “monkey face” and does the entire movie. I don’t think I would like to be constantly called “monkey face” as a term of endearment. I think that is just part of his cruelty and gaslighting that will be more evident later in the movie.

Unfortunately, Johnnie’s flash and winning ways continue to encircle her and when he leaves for a week, she practically stalks him, calling all over to try to talk to him, begging the post office if they have a message for her. Like, get some chill honey. Ultimately though Johnnie returns and meets up with her at her father’s ball and they get married.

After a whirlwind honeymoon they return to their new home which is all fancy and updated, and frankly, uggo. I loved her family home, but her new one is ew. Lina quickly learns that her new husband who she is completely infatuated with is in fact, broke. No job, no money. But that is ok, because we don’t judge on that. Except, Johnnie is a gambler, who loves the races.

His good friend Beaky shows up and Lina learns from him that Johnnie is a good time guy, very entertaining, and a very accomplished liar. Lina eventually decides she likes Beaky after being a little put off him at first by his comments regarding Johnnie – mainly because she learns Beaky is telling the truth about Johnnie.

She has learned some unsettling facts about her Johnnie – he is a gambler, a liar, and now, he has sold her family heirloom chairs that were a wedding gift from her super rich dad. Later, she also learns that Johnnie was fired from his job because he embezzled, but won’t be prosecuted if he can pay his ex-employer (and cousin!) back the money. Lina is determined to leave Johnnie over this, but after writing a “Dear Johnny” letter, tears it up instead. At this moment, Johnnie walks in and Lina learns the horrible news that her father is dead. A little while later, Johnnie learns the horrible news that they were not left any money, only a gigantic portrait of the General himself.

Johnnie needs to still come up with the money to avoid prosecution. He talks his friend Beaky into a speculative land scheme, which Lina tries to talk Beaky out of later. Johnnie hears and gets really angry with Lina over it, obviously. However, she gives him the benefit of the doubt again. Then Johnnie calls it off anyway, and Beaky and Johnnie go to London together. A few days later, Beaky ends up mysteriously dead. The circumstances make Lina go hmm, especially after she is visited by inspectors inquiring into the death – they don’t suspect Johnnie, but she sure does.

It was here that Billy and I couldn’t stop seeing the web that Lina is in. Literally. The light and shadows in the shots form a web on the walls, on the floor, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It follows Lina and Johnnie everywhere, giving everything a much more ominous framing, like it needed to be more ominous. Lina discovers something that makes her fear for her own life, and when Johnnie brings her a glass of milk before bed, she doesn’t drink it. That scene, that shot, of Grant coming up the stairs with the milk is so freaky and so simple. Pure magic there. (also, see the web?)

The next morning, the glass is still there, undrunk, on the nightstand, but Lina is packing her bags to get the heck out of dodge. Johnnie finds her packing and despite her trying to convince him she is just going to visit her mom for a bit because her nerves need it, and he gets super mad. He tells her her will drive her and she is like no no, I can do it, but he insists.

So there they are, racing along the cliffs at high speeds. Grant reaches over, fiddles with her door. We see shots of how close they are to the edge, how one good push and Lina could go flying from the car and down the cliffside into the water and her certain death. It gets all creepy and intense and what is going to happen and Johnny swerves the car at the last minute and then there is chaos, the door is open, they are struggling – then next we know, Johnnie pulls the car over and they argue and Johnnie instead confesses he was going to take her to her mom’s and then go home and commit suicide. He tells her that he has since decided that it is the cowards way out, and tells her all sorts of things, like how he was in Liverpool when Beaky died, and gives an explanation to her about the final straw that sent her packing. She believes him, they get back in the car, head back to their home, driving off into the sunset.

And that’s it. That is the end.

We are left to decide what Johnnie is really like. Is he just a wastrel, a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat and a thief? Or is he a murderer too? Was he trying to kill Lina? Or was he trying to save her? Like I said, I looked back at all of his movements throughout the film with new eyes after a certain point in the movie, and thought to myself, did he kill her dad? I fully believed he was capable of murder. Billy however thinks Johnnie was just a jerkwad but not a murderer. (I think Billy might need to up his intuition regarding danger, quite frankly!)

I loved this movie. I loved seeing a different side of Grant, the dark side. His acting was impeccable, leaving so much room for doubt in the audience’s mind about his character. Fontaine was fantastic as well. Overall, a winner in my book.

Although I would never have gotten back in that car. I can guarantee that.

For Lisa’s thoughts, jump on over here! For Katja’s, visit her here!

The Spring of Cary Grant: Holiday

On May 13, 2023May 13, 2023 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn movies, the spring of cary grant7 Comments

I got behind though, and Lisa was gracious enough to allow me the time to catch up! We started Holiday last week, then didn’t finish it before our trip, then when we got home things were crazy busy, so we finally finished it last night (and just ended up watching the whole thing again because I can’t just go back to the middle of a movie and start watching again). So this post was supposed to be up last Thursday! But better late than never!

This one was a hit in our house! Billy declared it his favorite, while I am still deciding if I like it better than To Catch a Thief. But it makes sense that Billy loved this one, because Billy is a bit like Cary Grant’s character, Johnny Case. A bit silly, a bit of a free spirit, a guy who likes a good time. And Johnny is a good time guy, no doubt.

The movie begins and Johnny is wildly in love with a woman named Julia, and is head over heels for her dimples. They met on a trip and fell madly in love and decided to get married. But Johnny still needs to talk with Julia’s family and when he shows up to their house, is knocked off his feet in a different way by their wealth and enormous museum of a house, impressed but also..not impressed if that makes sense. He meets Julia’s sister Linda first, played by Katherine Hepburn, and the two instantly hit it off. There is a bunch of coming and going with Johnny and where he is and he ends up in the room designated the playroom with Linda. The playroom is an ordinary room, an oasis of normalcy in the palatial fancy mansion. And it is so cozy and just normal, with a blazing fireplace and comfortable couches, as well as musical instruments and yes, leftover childhood toys. Linda explains that her late mother wanted a room that was a room that could be comfortable and a retreat, and it is evident that the playroom is Linda’s favorite room in the whole gigundo house.

Linda and Johnny get to spend some time in the room getting to know each other while waiting for Julia to talk her father about her intention to marry Johnny. The difference in financial status might get messy though, and Linda and Julia know it. However, Johnny is good at his job, and so Julia has high hopes that her father will see his potential and give him a job. Then they can settle down and live a nice, upperclass, privileged life together just as she wants. However, is that what Johnny wants?

Linda knows Johnny’s heart way better than Julia does. She knows that the life Julia has in mind is not the same as Johnny’s plan for life. He wants to be a free spirit, he wants to explore and wander and have fun, and make only the money he needs. He is not a slave to the almighty dollar with aspirations of wealth. It is quite evident to the audience and most of the other characters that Linda is in love with Johnny, and that the two are way more well suited than Johnny and Julia. Linda is the black sheep of the family, and we see that Julia and her dad dismiss her as silly most of the time, behind her back.

Linda loves her sister though, and after their dad approves the marriage, requests that she throw the engagement party, just something small and intimate, not a big to-do. She tells Julia that if she is not allowed to do this, then she won’t attend the big party. Well, Julia and her dad sort of poo-poo this idea of Linda’s, and plan to have a big party anyway. And true to her word, Linda doesn’t attend, despite it embarrassing Julia. Linda instead hides out in the playroom with Johnny’s good friends the Nick and Susan Potter, Linda and Julia’s brother drunk brother Ned, and finally Johnny as well.

Anyway, long story short. Julia wants Johnny to give up his life. Johnny wants Julia to give up hers. Neither want to, and the two break up and Johnny leaves on a cruise (that he tried to get Julia to go on). Linda realizes that Julia doesn’t love Johnny at all, and knows this is her chance to escape her gilded prison and see the world with the man she loves. So she runs out to chase down her man. It was pretty clear that Johnny had been feeling the same confused feelings and in the end, the right two characters end up together.

I feel like Julia’s hat here should have tipped us off right from the beginning about her true nature.

Katharine Hepburn is fantastic in this movie. She is simply insanely gorgeous too. Damn. Cary Grant was so saucy in this movie as well – so much physical humor and fooling around and carefree. I loved it. He has such a range, doesn’t he? And apparently so does Hepburn, because I didn’t know she was so funny!

So what would you do? If you had a chance to live a life of wealth and privilege but had to give up your dreams to do so, would you? In my twenties I was totally Johnny. Forget about settling down and wanting stability, enjoy youth while we can, that was Billy and I in our twenties, so we would probably have 100% turned down any offer that did not align with our world view. In our 40s? Hmmm. That would take a little more consideration…. lol.

We loved this one, and we are looking forward to the next in the line-up, Petticoat Junction!

Lisa’s post is here! I am grateful she allowed me time to catch up since I am enjoying these posts and I didn’t want to be too behind! Katja from Breath of Hallelujah is also joining in, and her post can be found here!

My Sunday-Monday Post

On April 30, 2023April 30, 2023 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn books and reading36 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

Hello everyone! We had a pretty big week last week, lots of happenings and big decisions and fun things too! Wyatt and I finally have gotten back on track with our schedule. We have had a crazy two months and it was so nice to get back fully into our routine. Just in time for us to go on a mini-trip this weekend! We are heading to Indiana to see the wolves at Wolf Park. This was supposed to be Wyatt’s birthday gift but he was in the hospital so we rescheduled. I mentioned last week that I had started making journals through Amazon’s self-publishing program and I made a special one for our upcoming trip (as well as the rest of our trips throughout the rest of the year). It arrives today and I am anxious to get started writing in it. I am excited about our trip too, I think Wyatt will really love it!

I have not quite figured out all the logistics of selling these yet. Lol. They are available on Amazon but I haven’t been able to master how to show the interior pages on the Amazon page quite yet; however I have been making these informational type things that I post on the Fox & Firth Facebook and Instagram pages that do show the interior pages. The storefront itself is here.

Read Last Week:

Shady Hollow is so cute!!! I am not quite done with it but I should be today or tomorrow. I really love it. I mean, any book that references Watership Down in the little blurb I had to read, and while it is nothing like Watership Down, really, except for talking animals, it is a great book all on its own. I also finished listening to Braiding Sweetgrass. I loved the book when I read it a few years ago and loved it even more listening to it being read by Kimmerer. I highly recommend it, whether you read it or listen.

Reading This Week:

I know going into this week that I am not going to have too much time to read so I am choosing my books accordingly. The Wild and Free Family is a shorter book that I can take my time reading, picking it up here and there, probably while Wyatt is in physical therapy and speech. I LOVED the Call of the Wild and Free by Arment so I am excited to start this one. And then The Moth Keeper just looks beautiful. It is a middle grade graphic novel and I look forward to relaxing with it at night. (plus I love Luna Moths!)

Posted Last Week:

Book Review: The White Hare

The Spring of Cary Grant: An Affair to Remember

Wonderful Watership Down Covers

Watched Last Week:

In TV, we watched When Calls the Heart, which Billy is truly such a sport for watching with me. We also watched a few Murdoch Mysteries, and then last night the newest episode of Brokenwood Mysteries. Brokenwood is seriously one of my favorite shows. I am also waiting very impatiently for new episodes of Hotel Portofino (the first season was amazing!) and Beyond Paradise, although that last one I feel like I will be waiting for a while sadly.

We of course also watched An Affair to Remember. This week our Cary Grant film of the week is Holiday! I have heard good things about that one and I am looking forward to it!

And that is about it from our around here today! I hope all is well in your world!

My Sunday-Monday Post

On April 23, 2023April 23, 2023 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn books and reading36 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

Hello everyone! We had a very quiet week around here, and so far, a pretty quiet weekend. It’s been nice actually. I’ve been working on a new enterprise along with Billy, making journals that I sell over on Amazon through their self-publishing service, and I have been enjoying working on them whenever I can catch a moment. So far I have made camping and caregiver and medical journals to take to doctor’s appointments, as well as a line of nature journals that Wyatt designed the covers for. It’s been really fun!

I’ve also been making my final decisions on the curriculum that Wyatt and I are going to use next year. It is one of my favorite things to do! I’ve been toying with an idea of a YouTube channel to talk about homeschooling, and homeschooling a special needs child, our crazy life and adventures, but…I don’t know if I would feel comfortable being in front of a camera like that. I prefer being behind the scenes and behind the camera, but I feel like I get so much out of the YouTube channels I watch, information wise, that I wonder if I have something to offer with our experiences as Wyatt’s parents and how we all choose to live. It would also offer an opportunity for more conversation with other families like ours and opportunities to learn from. I don’t know though. And here I am just blathering on this morning, I guess I couldn’t wait for my coffee catch up day.

Let’s get to the books!!

Read Last Week:

So last week I ended up starting The White Hare and I absolutely am in love with it. I am not quite finished yet but I will finish today or tomorrow. It reminds me of a Barbara Michaels or Mary Stewart book and they are two of my favorite authors to read! I have also been listening to Braiding Sweetgrass. I read it a few years ago but there is something very special about listening to it as well. Robin Wall Kimmerer reads it herself and that adds such a lovely additional dimension, her words in her voice. I definitely recommend listening to it.

Wyatt and I FINALLY finished The Wild Robot. We had some big pauses in our nightly reading with his surgeries even though we tried a few times, but we finally got off that island. I do like that book and Roz and Brightbill but if you have a sensitive child I would recommend reading it yourself first to see if it will bother them.

Reading This Week:

I keep seeing so much about this Shady Hollow series that I am going to give it a go. I think I tried once before but didn’t end up reading it. And Wyatt and I have started Heartwood Hollow book 3, Better Together as our before bed read. I guess both of us are all about anthropomorphism.

Posted Last Week:

Wednesday Morning Coffee Catch Up

The Spring of Cary Grant: My Favorite Wife

Book Review: Watership Down

Watching and Listening:

We have been watching When Calls the Heart (Billy, you are such a good guy), and The Brokenwood Mysteries. I am so excited Brokenwood has a new season, I just love that show. Then Lisa from Boondock Ramblings mentioned that Newhart is on Amazon and when Billy told me he had NEVER EVER watched it, we had to add it to our line up. We watch it when we need to watch something quick and funny because Bob Newhart always cracks me up with his deadpan delivery. I remember watching it when I was real little kid with my mom and dad – just like Wyatt does now. I wonder if he will grow up wanting to live in New England in an old home in a small town, sort of like I did? I am pretty sure Newhart influenced me (but better Newhart than Dallas which I also watched with my mom…)

We also watched My Favorite Wife as part of our Spring of Cary Grant.

I haven’t been listening to podcasts since I have been listening to Braiding Sweetgrass.

Musically, we generally ask Alexa to play Classic 70s Folk, and that is our go-to. Although I always always skip Joni Mitchell because her voice is beautiful but sounds so mournful to me, and also that Cat’s in the Cradle song that always makes me want to sob.

And that is it from around here! What is going on in your world?

The Spring of Cary Grant: My Favorite Wife

On April 20, 2023April 20, 2023 By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn the spring of cary grant10 Comments

So when Lisa at Boondock Ramblings told me she was going to do a Spring of Cary Grant, I knew I wanted in on it. She introduced me to the legend that is Grant last fall, and I am woefully behind on his films. So I am tagging along on her journey, posting along with her as well. I missed last week but I am back this week with My Favorite Wife!

This movie was so fun. It was so crazy and far-fetched and I well, I loved that. I mean, a woman is stranded on an island for SEVEN years? And then comes home and is perfectly perfect like she never left, no trauma, she looks great, and is just boom ready to resume her life? I loved that. Lol. However, her loyal and loving husband who waited for her and mourned her and looked for all that long time had just happened to have her declared dead and was remarried the very morning she returns. What are the odds? Like seriously, what are the odds?

This movie was a total romp. Grant, as Nick Arden, found himself with two wives, Ellen the wife who has returned from the dead basically, and Bianca, his new wife, who I felt sort of sorry for. Ellen makes her return known to him the night of his wedding, and instead of having a heart to heart with Bianca immediately, he strings her along a while. Properly, with no hanky -panky but still, it wasn’t very thoughtful or brave of him to let her just languish around really confused.

As for Ellen, Billy laughed and said there was no way in this world that I would have handled the situation with as much mirth, giggles, or grace. And he is completely 100% right. I would have given him .5 seconds to get up there and start explaining. I wouldn’t want him to hurt the new wife, but things would have been discussed, then and there.

It also comes to light that Ellen was not alone on her island. In fact, she was shipwrecked on the island with a real studmuffin, and they called each other Adam and Eve. Now, Steven (Adam) admits they did nothing that was reproachful so they don’t need to feel any regret for anything that happened on the island, but Nick is a wee bit skeptical, simply because this guy is super fit, athletic, and handsome. I must admit, I wanted to know way more about the time on the island but we never learned anything. Darn it.

Oh, I should mention that Ellen and Nick had children who were wee little kids when she was “drowned” so there are children to consider here as well. Ellen did not tell them right away, and I agree with that choice. That needed some finesse as it could have been traumatic. Thank goodness though the kids just overheard and were excited, and decided to pull their mom’s leg about it for a few minutes.

It ends at Nick’s mountain house (I wish I had a separate mountain house!) that was gorgeous. All wood and stone. Sigh. Anyway, there was some sort of nonsense happening with Nick not being sure how to handle things publicly with her return and a cruise he might take and wanting her to stay at this mountain house but then he didn’t want to actually leave her there and wanted to resume his marriage. So he ended up staying and I hated the last ten minutes and the end.

Overall, I really enjoyed this totally silly movie. Grant’s eyebrows did a lot of work in this movie, and were super expressive. He could have given Dwayne Johnson a run for his money as the People’s Eyebrow back in the day.

Have you watched this one? What do you think?

Lisa always includes cool trivia and backstory with her posts (I mean, she was a journalist before staying home to homeschool her kids). You can find her post here!

Feel free to join in if you wish! Our next movie is none other than An Affair to Remember!