"Father Goose" is a romantic comedy set, rather incongruously, against the backdrop of the New Guinea campaign during World War II. (Filming actually took place in Jamaica). Walter Eckland is an American beach-bum living in a shack on the beach who becomes a coast watcher reporting to the Allied forces on the movements of Japanese aircraft. (The film's title derives from his code-name "Mother Goose"; all coast watchers in the area have code-names derived from nursery rhymes or fairy tales). He is not motivated by patriotism (an emotion quite foreign to his character) but is blackmailed into accepting the role by Frank Houghton, an Australian naval officer, who confiscates the alcoholic Eckland's supply of whisky. The is hidden around the area, and Eckland is rewarded for each confirmed aircraft sighting with directions enabling him to find one of the bottles.
The other party to the romance is Catherine Freneau, a French schoolteacher who meets Eckland while she is fleeing from the advancing Japanese with seven of her female pupils. The two take an immediate dislike to one another, largely because of their very different personalities and lifestyles. Eckland is (in Catherine's words) a "rude, foul-mouthed, drunken, filthy beast", while she is prim, puritanical and (in Eckland's words) a "Miss Goody Two Shoes". Catherine's opinion of Eckland is not improved when she learns that he was once a lecturer in history at an American university, but resigned his position in favour of life as a beach-bum in protest against the college authorities who insisted that he should wear a necktie while giving his lectures.
It is, of course, an established convention in Hollywood rom-coms that true love is based upon hatred at first sight, but at least in most films which make use of this convention the transition from mutual dislike to ardent passion is a gradual one. In this film it is virtually instantaneous. One minute Eckland and Catherine are slapping one another around the face, the next they are discussing their wedding plans, with no psychologically convincing explanation for the abrupt change. It doesn't help that there is little chemistry between the sexagenarian Cary Grant and the beautiful Leslie Caron, in her early thirties at the time. In Grant's previous film "Charade" he had succeeded much better in making an older man-younger woman relationship, in that case with Audrey Hepburn, believable, but there he had had the assistance of a witty, literate script, something which "Father Goose" largely lacks. Another weakness is that, although the story is supposed to be taking place in an active war zone, we get very little sense of the characters being in any sort of danger, except at the very end when Eckland, Catherine and the girls are threatened by a Japanese gunboat while being rescued by an American submarine.
This was Grant's penultimate film- his last was to be "Walk, Don't Run" from two years later- and apparently one of his favourites, although the critics have not always agreed with him. I wouldn't agree either. The best part of the film, in fact, is the early scenes between Eckland and Trevor Howard's Houghton, which are quite amusing. The film, however, starts to go downhill when the main romantic plot starts and it ends up as a sentimental and not very original bog-standard rom-com. 5/10
Some goofs. Houghton and his fellow-officers are supposed to be Australian, but all speak with British accents. Although Catherine is French, she pronounces her Christian name in the English manner. (The French pronunciation would be closer to "Katrine"). Her father was a diplomat, and she mentions that one of his postings was to "Fiume in Yugoslavia". In 1942 when the story is set Fiume was still in Italy; it only became part of Yugoslavia (under the Croatian name Rijeka) after the war.
The other party to the romance is Catherine Freneau, a French schoolteacher who meets Eckland while she is fleeing from the advancing Japanese with seven of her female pupils. The two take an immediate dislike to one another, largely because of their very different personalities and lifestyles. Eckland is (in Catherine's words) a "rude, foul-mouthed, drunken, filthy beast", while she is prim, puritanical and (in Eckland's words) a "Miss Goody Two Shoes". Catherine's opinion of Eckland is not improved when she learns that he was once a lecturer in history at an American university, but resigned his position in favour of life as a beach-bum in protest against the college authorities who insisted that he should wear a necktie while giving his lectures.
It is, of course, an established convention in Hollywood rom-coms that true love is based upon hatred at first sight, but at least in most films which make use of this convention the transition from mutual dislike to ardent passion is a gradual one. In this film it is virtually instantaneous. One minute Eckland and Catherine are slapping one another around the face, the next they are discussing their wedding plans, with no psychologically convincing explanation for the abrupt change. It doesn't help that there is little chemistry between the sexagenarian Cary Grant and the beautiful Leslie Caron, in her early thirties at the time. In Grant's previous film "Charade" he had succeeded much better in making an older man-younger woman relationship, in that case with Audrey Hepburn, believable, but there he had had the assistance of a witty, literate script, something which "Father Goose" largely lacks. Another weakness is that, although the story is supposed to be taking place in an active war zone, we get very little sense of the characters being in any sort of danger, except at the very end when Eckland, Catherine and the girls are threatened by a Japanese gunboat while being rescued by an American submarine.
This was Grant's penultimate film- his last was to be "Walk, Don't Run" from two years later- and apparently one of his favourites, although the critics have not always agreed with him. I wouldn't agree either. The best part of the film, in fact, is the early scenes between Eckland and Trevor Howard's Houghton, which are quite amusing. The film, however, starts to go downhill when the main romantic plot starts and it ends up as a sentimental and not very original bog-standard rom-com. 5/10
Some goofs. Houghton and his fellow-officers are supposed to be Australian, but all speak with British accents. Although Catherine is French, she pronounces her Christian name in the English manner. (The French pronunciation would be closer to "Katrine"). Her father was a diplomat, and she mentions that one of his postings was to "Fiume in Yugoslavia". In 1942 when the story is set Fiume was still in Italy; it only became part of Yugoslavia (under the Croatian name Rijeka) after the war.