Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

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Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

Theatrical release poster
Directed by H.C. Potter
Produced by Melvin Frank
Norman Panama
Written by Eric Hodgins (novel)
Melvin Frank
Norman Panama (screenplay)
Starring Cary Grant
Myrna Loy
Music by Leigh Harline
Cinematography James Wong Howe
Editing by Harry Marker
Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures
Release date(s) June 4, 1948
Running time 93 minutes
Country United States
Language English
This article is about the 1948 film. For the 1946 novel, see Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (novel).

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is a 1948 American comedy film directed by H.C. Potter and starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. The film was written and produced by the team of Melvin Frank and Norman Panama and was an adaptation of Eric Hodgins' popular 1946 novel, illustrated by William Steig.

The film was a box office hit upon its release, and has remained a popular film through cable television broadcasts and the home video market. Warner Home Video released the film to DVD with restored and remastered audio and video in 2004, following a campaign to get it released to the medium. Featuring a plot that can be easily identified with, the film has spawned a number of remakes/semi-remakes, including the 1986 Tom Hanks vehicle The Money Pit, 1993's The Dream House, 2007's Are We Done Yet?.[1]

The house built for, and seen in the film, still stands on the old Fox Ranch property in Malibu State Park, in the hills a few miles north of Malibu. Its currently used as an office for the Park, and can be found in Google Earth by using the coordinates 34 05' 41.40" N 118 42' 43.63" W. The actual house built by Hodgins still stands in the Merryall area of the Litchfield County, Connecticut, town of New Milford. It sold in August 2004 for $1.2 million.[2]

The DVD release of the film includes in the disc's special features, two radio performances, both with Cary Grant reprising the title role, and with Irene Dunne as Muriel in the October 10, 1949, Lux Radio Theatre broadcast on CBS (running one hour) and with Grant's actual wife Betsy Drake playing Muriel in the June 9, 1950, broadcast on NBC's Screen Director's Playhouse (a 1/2 hour version).

Contents

[edit] Promotion

As a promotion for the film, 73 full-scale replicas of the house were built in various locations in the US and raffled off. Locations included Bakersfield, California, Chandler Street in Worcester, Massachusetts, MacArthur Road in East Natick, MA, Portland, Oregon, and Ottawa Hills, Ohio. Thousands lined up in front of the house in Ottawa Hills, paying admission to view the house at its opening. [3]

[edit] Plot

Jim Blandings (Grant), a bright account executive in the advertising business, lives with his wife Muriel (Loy) and two daughters in a cramped New York apartment. Tired of the apartment's existing configuration and furnishings, Mrs. Blandings secretly plans to remodel their apartment. After putting an end to this idea, Mr. Blandings comes across an ad for new homes in Connecticut. Planning to purchase and "fix up" an old home, they contact a real estate agent, who decides they are just the sort of suckers he needs to unload "The Old Hackett Place" in fictional Lansdale County Connecticut, a dilapidated, two hundred year old farmhouse. Blandings purchases the property for much more than the usual going rate for land in the area, provoking his friend/lawyer Bill Cole (who narrates the film, smoking a pipe, after the stage manager character in Thornton Wilder's Our Town) to chastise him for following his heart rather than his head.

The old house, dating from the Revolutionary War-era, turns out to be structurally unsound and has to be torn down. The Blandings hire architect Simms (Reginald Denny) to design and supervise the construction of the new home.

From its purchase to the house's completion, troubles beset the Blandings:

  • After purchasing the property the Blandings then decide to have the house examined by an engineer, who tells them it is worthless and needs to be demolished. In fact, a series of inspectors all say "Tear it down!"
  • The Blandings demolish the old house without consent from the previous owner/mortgage holder (Hackett)... who then asks for full payment.
  • Jim finds he must go to bed hours earlier than he normally would so he can make the only morning train to New York at 5:00 A.M., meaning he will arrive at his office before it opens.
  • The well being drilled by Mr. Tesander is going deeper and deeper looking for water, while just days later the contractors have to plug a bubbling spring they accidentally open while digging the basement for the house, making the earlier drilling a costly waste of time.
  • No windows are installed and the floors are freshly varnished the day they move in.

On top of all this, at work Jim is assigned the task of coming up with a slogan for "WHAM"-brand ham, an advertising account that has destroyed the careers of previous account executives assigned to it. Jim also suspects that Muriel is cheating on him with Bill Cole, who due to a violent thunderstorm one night sleeps at the Blandings, alone in the house with Muriel.

With mounting pressure, sky-rocketing expenses, and his new assignment, Jim Blandings starts to wonder why he ever wanted to live in the country.

Finally, with a stroke of luck the Blandings' maid, Gussy, provides Mr. Blandings with the perfect WHAM slogan, saving his job. As the film ends, Bill Cole says that he realizes that some things "you do buy with your heart," even though he still believes Blandings was flim-flammed.

[edit] Movie vs. book

The movie is a fairly faithful adaptation of the Hodgins novel, with some dialogue reproduced verbatim. But the time frame of the movie is telescoped, and some plot lines are added and removed.

The role of Bill Cole is much larger in the movie, with a subplot of involvement with Mrs. Blandings that is not in the novel. The subplot in the movie involving Blandings's job troubles and the "Wham" account are not in in the book.

Jim is the one who gets locked longest into the storage closet in the book, while Bill is locked in for a while in the movie.

The movie also omits some troubles contained in the book, such as a feud with the local banker and the hostility with which he is greeted by some townspeople.

[edit] Reception

American Film Institute recognition

[edit] Cast

Actor Role
Cary Grant Jim Blandings
Myrna Loy Muriel Blandings
Melvyn Douglas Bill Cole
Louise Beavers Gussie
Reginald Denny Henry Simms
Jason Robards, Sr. John Retch
Lex Barker Carpenter Foreman
Connie Marshall Betsy Blandings
Sharyn Moffett Joan Blandings
Ian Wolfe Real Estate Agent Smith
Nestor Paiva Joe Appolonio
Harry Shannon W.D. Tesander
Tito Vuolo Mr. Zucca

[edit] Adaptations to Other Media

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House was adapted as a radio play on the July 1, 1949 broadcast of Scren Director's Playhouse with Cary Grant and Frances Robinson and again on the June 9, 1950 broadcast with Cary Grant and Betsy Drake.

[edit] Remakes

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.imdb.com.
  2. ^ http://www.loopnet.com/comparables.
  3. ^ toledoblade.com - A home made famous in the 1948 mega-hit ‘Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House’ is in Ottawa Hills

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Blandings_Builds_His_Dream_House"