D. Ted Green
B&W
The third Dropper Harris film clearly realises it’s the last in the series. That’s not to say it’s lazy, everybody involved is clearly giving a hundred percent even when they know the material they’ve been given is utterly ludicrous. Cary Grant in particular looks like he’s relishing the absolutely ridiculous dialogue and lunatic scenario, knowing that this isn’t something he’d find himself doing for Howard Hawks or George Cukor. This has the feel of everybody letting their hair down, of an entire production team chilling out and just throwing stuff to the wall to see what would stick. Cary Grant later wrote (and indeed directed a film) about his experiments with LSD, and this feels like he’s slipped some to the crew to give the whole production that blissed out, psychedelic, “logic is there to be broken, man” type of atmosphere. As here we have a plot involving Dropper Harris, London citizen and number one agent for the British secret service, taking a trip into space. Yes, this is Dropper Harris goes to the moon.
If you were expecting some common-sense plot to explain this development, then I’m sorry you’re out of luck. There are reasons given for why all this happens, explanations offered for all that takes place, but they don’t stand up to even the briefest scrutiny. Indeed this is the second version of this paragraph I’ve written, in the first I tried to explain the plot, but after much head scratching and confusion I just gave up. Again the makers aren’t being slap-dash, this is a film that knows its money shot is Dropper Harris (Cary Grant) and Binky (Tommy Harrison) bouncing around in Flash Gordon outfits on the moon with big silly grins on their faces. That’s what’s on the poster, that’s what the public wanted to see and – goddamnit! – that’s what we got.
Yes, there’s some nonsense about the Russians having opened a moon-base and sending rays back to Earth, but it’s purely window dressing. This is about Dropper, Binky and new team member/love interest Catarina (Dorothy Lamour) going to the moon. That’s where the fun lies and everybody is set to have the time of their lives. Grant in particular has a big, very un-Cary Grant-like goofy grin, as he prances around in Buster Crabbe’s cast-offs spouting alternatively meaningless mumbo-jumbo or over the top atrocious dialogue. He’s still brilliant in this film. Indeed the genius of Cary Grant’s acting is that even when he knows what he’s doing is totally ridiculous, even when part of him is obviously making fun of each scene even as he acts in it, he still takes the audience with him. He never capsizes the film, never ruins it by playing it like panto – somehow he manages to be both serious and in on the joke at the same time, and the result is some of the most joyful silliness you will ever see.
There was nowhere else for Dropper Harris to go after this (except, perhaps, Mars), but we should be thankful these movies exist. A gleeful series of mad, lunatic 1930s adventure films, which always felt out of this world even before they actually went there.
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