Walk, Don’t Run (1966)

Walk, Don’t Run
Directed by Charles Walters
Written by Sol Saks based on a story by Robert Russell and Frank Ross
1966/US
Sol C. Siegel Productions
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Christine Easton: After 7:45, you can have the bathroom all day if you’d like.

Sir William Rutland: I wouldn’t know what to do in the bathroom all day![/box]

Cary Grant’s final film is a remake of 1943’s The More the Merrier with Grant in the Charles Coburn part.  The earlier film is classic, this one is fairly fun.

Christine Easton (Samantha Eggar) works at the British Embassy in Tokyo.  She considered it her patriotic duty to offer up her apartment to share during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.  She had intended to attract a female roommate but industrialist Sir William Rutland (Grant), who has arrived two days before his hotel reservation, muscles himself in.   Shortly thereafter, Rutland meets and takes a liking to young American architect and Olympic compeititor  Steve Davis (Jim Hutton) and agrees to share wis room with him.  When he finds out Christine is engaged to an awful diplomat, he starts matchmaking.

There was a time in the mid-60’s when the Code was gone and mainstream filmmakers took the opportunity to get slightly racy with their content.  Oftentimes as here, the result is double entendres that just feel icky somehow.  An example is the long conversation between Grant and Hutton about whether Eggar “has … ” or not.  The movie is also filled with unfunny jabs at the Soviets.  But. still, there’s Grant as suave as ever and he has some funny physical business to do.  As a bonus, we get to hear him hum the theme songs from Charade and An Affair to Remember!

Unused theme song – love this! – feels like summer