- Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
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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 
Theatrical release posterDirected by H.C. Potter Produced by Melvin Frank
Norman PanamaWritten by Eric Hodgins (novel)
Melvin Frank
Norman Panama (screenplay)Starring Cary Grant
Myrna LoyMusic 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 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. It 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[citation needed] 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[citation needed] to get it released to the medium. The film inspired the Tom Hanks' The Money Pit (1986), and prompted a 2007 remake called Are We Done Yet?[1]
The house built for the 1948 film still stands on the old Fox Ranch property in Malibu Creek State Park in the hills a few miles north of Malibu. It is used as an office for the Park. Coordinates: 34°5′41.4″N 118°42′43.63″W / 34.094833°N 118.7121194°W
Contents
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. Muriel secretly plans to remodel their apartment. After rejecting this idea, Jim Blandings comes across an ad for new homes in Connecticut and they get excited about moving.
Planning to purchase and "fix up" an old home, the couple contact a real estate agent, who uses them to unload "The Old Hackett Place" in fictional Lansdale County, Connecticut. It is a dilapidated, two hundred-year-old farmhouse. Blandings purchases the property for more than the going rate for land in the area, provoking his friend/lawyer Bill Cole to chastise him for following his heart rather than his head.
(Cole narrates the film, smoking a pipe, an apparent nod to the stage manager character in Thornton Wilder's Our Town.)[citation needed] 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 the original purchase to the new house's completion, troubles beset the Blandings.
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 after he slept at the Blandings' alone in the house with Muriel one night due to a violent thunderstorm.
With mounting pressure, sky-rocketing expenses, and his new assignment, Jim starts to wonder why he wanted to live in the country.The Blandings' maid Gussy provides Blandings with the perfect WHAM slogan, and he saves his job. As the film ends, Bill Cole says that he realizes that some things "you do buy with your heart."
Reception
According to Time magazine, "Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Melvyn Douglas have a highly experienced way with this sort of comedy, and director H. C. Potter is so much at home with it that he gets additional laughs out of the predatory rustics and even out of the avid gestures of a steam shovel. Blandings may turn out to be too citified for small-town audiences, and incomprehensible abroad; but among those millions of Americans who have tried to feather a country nest with city greenbacks, it ought to hit the jackpot."[2]
Over half a century later, the film placed 72nd on the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Laughs list.
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 Promotion
As a promotion for the film, the studio built 73 "dream houses" in various locations in the United States, selling some of them by raffle;[3] over 60 of the houses were equipped by General Electric, including the ones in the following cities:[4]
Phoenix, AZ, Little Rock, AR, Bakersfield, CA, Fresno, CA, Oakland, CA, Sacramento, CA, San Diego, CA, San Francisco, CA, Denver, CO, Bridgeport, CT, Hartford, CT, Washington, DC, Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL, Indianapolis, IN, South Bend, IN, Terre Haute, IN, Des Moines, IA, Louisville, KY, Baltimore, MD, Worcester, MA, Detroit, MI, Grand Rapids, MI, St. Paul, MN, Kansas City, MO, St. Louis, MO, Omaha, NE, Tenafly, NJ, Albuquerque, NM, Albany, NY, Buffalo, NY, Rochester, NY, Syracuse, NY, Tarrytown, NY, Utica, NY, Greensboro, NC, Rocky Mount, NC, Cleveland, OH, Columbus, OH, Toledo, OH, Oklahoma City, OK, Tulsa, OK, Portland, OR, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Providence, RI, Chattanooga, TN, Memphis, TN, Nashville, TN, Amarillo, TX, Austin, TX, Austin, TX, Dallas, TX, Fort Worth, TX, Houston, TX, Salt Lake City, UT, Seattle, WA, and Spokane, WA.
Locations included Bakersfield, California; Worcester and East Natick, Massachusetts; 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]
In Phoenix, Arizona, the dream house was a ranch house built by P.W. Womack Construction Company in a central city development called BelAir (now part of Encanto Village).[5]
Related works
The story behind the film began as an April 1946 article written by by Eric Hodgins for Fortune magazine; that article was reprinted in Reader's Digest and (in condensed form[6]) in Life before being published as a novel.[7]
Melvin Frank and Norman Panama adapted the novel of the same name; their script is fairly faithful to the novel, with some dialogue used verbatim.[citation needed] The time frame of the movie is telescoped, and some plot lines are added and removed. The movie omits some troubles contained in the book, such as a feud with the local banker and the hostility with which Blandings is greeted by some local townspeople.[citation needed] The role of Bill Cole is enlarged in the movie, and includes a new subplot related to his wife that is not in the novel. The subplot related to Blandings's job troubles and the "Wham" account is not in the book.[citation needed]
The DVD release of the film includes two radio adaptations, both with Cary Grant reprising his leading role.[citation needed] Irene Dunne played his wife Muriel in the October 10, 1949, Lux Radio Theatre broadcast on CBS (running one hour;[8] Grant's wife Betsy Drake played Muriel in the June 9, 1950, broadcast on NBC's Screen Director's Playhouse (a 1/2 hour version).
Remakes
A remake, The Money Pit starring Tom Hanks, was released in 1986, and another remake, Are We Done Yet? (a sequel to the 2005 film Are We There Yet?) starring Ice Cube, was released on April 4, 2007, and is due for a sequel in the near future.
References
- ^ Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ "The New Pictures". Time. April 5, 1948. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,798350,00.html. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
- ^ a b "A home made famous in the 1948 mega-hit ‘Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House’ is in Ottawa Hills". toledoblade.com. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. http://web.archive.org/web/20070930025225/http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070401/ART09/70331021&SearchID=73278467862917. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
- ^ General Electric has made your Dream House come true! (advertisement). Life. June 28, 1948. p. 78. ISSN 0024-3019. http://books.google.com/books?id=a0YEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA78. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
- ^ Susie Steckner (August 2008). "Arizona Dreamin’". Phoenix magazine. http://www.phoenixmag.com/lifestyle/history/200808/arizona-dreamin-/2/. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
- ^ Mr. Blandings Builds His Castle. Life. April 29, 1946. p. 114ff.. ISSN 0024-3019. http://books.google.com/books?id=-FQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA114. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
- ^ Mr. Blandings Goes to Hollywood. Life. April 12, 1948. pp. 111–124. ISSN 0024-3019. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZUEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
- ^ "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House". radio adaptation. Lux Radio Theater via the Internet Archive. October 10, 1949. http://www.archive.org/details/Lux14. Retrieved 2011-03-19.
External links
Films directed by H. C. Potter 1930s Beloved Enemy (1936) · Wings Over Honolulu (1937) · Romance in the Dark (1938) · The Shopworn Angel (1938) · The Cowboy and the Lady (1938) · The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) · Blackmail (1939)1940s Congo Maisie (1940) · Second Chorus (1940) · Hellzapoppin' (1941) · Mr. Lucky (1943) · The Farmer's Daughter (1947) · A Likely Story (1947) · Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) · The Time of Your Life (1948)1950s AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs 1–10 11–20 The Producers • A Night at the Opera • Young Frankenstein • Bringing Up Baby • The Philadelphia Story • Singin' in the Rain • The Odd Couple • The General • His Girl Friday • The Apartment
21–30 31–40 41–50 51–60 61–70 What's Up, Doc? • Sherlock, Jr. • Beverly Hills Cop • Broadcast News • Horse Feathers • Take the Money and Run • Mrs. Doubtfire • The Awful Truth • Bananas • Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
71–80 Caddyshack • Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House • Monkey Business • Nine to Five • She Done Him Wrong • Victor Victoria • The Palm Beach Story • Road to Morocco • The Freshman • Sleeper
81–90 91–100 The Heartbreak Kid • Ball of Fire • Fargo • Auntie Mame • Silver Streak • Sons of the Desert • Bull Durham • The Court Jester • The Nutty Professor • Good Morning, Vietnam
Categories:- Films directed by H. C. Potter
- American comedy films
- RKO Pictures films
- 1940s comedy films
- 1948 films
- Films based on novels
- English-language films
- Films set in Connecticut
- Films set in New York City
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