Big Brown Eyes: Cary Grant acts like he's barely there

Is it worth your time?

If you like movies that move at the speed of a caffeinated squirrel, maybe. If you want a logical mystery, absolutely not. Fans of 1930s fast-talk will have a blast, but anyone looking for, like, a coherent plot might wanna skip this one.

Joan Bennett is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. She plays Eve, a manicurist who decides she’s basically a detective now. It’s pretty funny how she just walks into a newspaper office and suddenly she’s a star reporter. Nobody asks for her credentials. They just give her a desk. I wish job hunting was that easy.

Then there’s Cary Grant. Look, I love the guy. But he’s mostly just wandering through the frame looking annoyed. He’s playing a cop named Danny, but he spends half the movie getting outsmarted by his own girlfriend. There’s this one scene where he’s trying to be all tough and authoritative, but he just looks like he’d rather be literally anywhere else. Maybe grabbing a sandwich.

The whole jewel heist angle is fine, I guess. It’s got that classic “let’s run around in dark alleys” energy. But the movie gets weirdly dark when it pivots to the murder of a baby. It’s a massive tonal shift that the script isn’t really equipped to handle. One minute they’re trading snappy one-liners, and the next we’re supposed to care about this tragic crime. It doesn’t stick.

Some random thoughts:

• The dialogue is so fast I had to rewind twice to catch who was even being accused of what.
• There’s a bit of that same frantic energy you see in Red Hot Speed.
• The jewelry store set looks like it’s made of cardboard and hope.
• Why is everyone always yelling in the police station? Is there no telephone?

The ending happens so fast it’s like the director realized they were running out of film stock and just yelled “Cut!” while people were still talking. It’s a bit messy. It’s not exactly The Perfect Crime, that’s for sure. But for a rainy afternoon? It’s fine. It’s just a weird, little, punchy flick that forgets to breathe. 💅