August is over and September is upon us. Zoikes. It’s hard to believe this is our eighth Shamedown of this year, isn’t it? As usual, if anyone’s fuzzy on what a Shamedown is they can find Cinema Shame’s 2023 Call to Shame here. Past Shamedowns can be found here.
In 1937 Cary Grant’s star was on a rapid ascent, and one of his last movies as an up-and-comer was The Amazing Adventure. A British four-reeler also known as The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss, Amazing Quest and Romance and Riches, the film packs an oddly sedate punch.
Ernest Bliss (Cary Grant) wants for nothing. He’s a millionaire, his money is nicely invested, and he has endless free time. His life might seem perfect, but Ernest is restless. He can’t sleep. He can’t focus on anything. He doesn’t know what to do. Ernest’s doctor, Sir James Aldroyd (Peter Gawthorne) tells Ernest his problem is too much money and challenges him to live on a few pounds a week like the average working man. Ernest, highly affronted, not only accepts the challenge, but he bets Sir James that for the next year he’ll only use his money to help people, and if he fails, he’ll donate fifty-thousand pounds to Sir James’s clinic.
Making good on the challenge, Ernest leaves his bewildered butler, Clowes (Quinton McPherson) in charge of his fancy apartment for the next year and rents a room in a boardinghouse in Stepney Green. Since he really has no money and can’t find a job right away, he can’t pay his rent. Fortunately, the landlady, Mrs. Heath (Marie Heath), is a sweet soul and lets him stay.
After a lot of pavement-pounding, Ernest finally talks himself into a job hawking stoves, but since no one’s interested in buying one, it looks as if the job will fold. Instead of just letting it happen, though, Ernest puts his natural business acumen to work and uses five hundred pounds to demonstrate the stove to the public.
It works because we all know how much people love free food, and suddenly Ernest’s boss, Mr. Masters (John Turnbull) is more than solvent. Mr. Masters and his secretary, Frances (Mary Brian) are hugely grateful, and are disappointed when Ernest announces he has to move on to a different job. He does, however, ask Frances if he can have dinner with her when he’s settled in his new place of employment, and Frances happily accepts.
Ernest and Frances start dating, and their favorite hangout is a nice Italian restaurant where the head waiter, Giuseppi (Andreas Malandrinos) has the band serenade them with romantic melodies. Ernest tells Giuseppi that he deserves to own the restaurant. Giuseppi is flattered, but he doesn’t have the money to buy it.
Meanwhile, Ernest still has a bet to win, and he goes from job to job doing good for deserving people. Sometimes his friends recognize him, but they all agree to not blow Ernest’s cover, and even Sir James checks up on him when Ernest has to drive him out to the country for a house call.
Things get a bit dicey, though, when Ernest finds out Clowes is bored out of his mind and has been betting on racing dogs and knocking back spirits. He’s rented out Ernest’s flat to a couple of con-men who want to steal Ernest’s fortune, and while these two dingdongs seem dangerous, they easily fall into the Dumb Criminal category.
In the meantime, Frances has found out her sister is desperately sick and needs to go to Switzerland, and thinking she has no other options, breaks up with Ernest and agrees to marry Mr. Masters the Stove King. Good thing there are only a few days left for Ernest’s bet, though, because he has a few surprises up his sleeve.
The Amazing Adventure was based on a novel, The Amazing Quest of Mr. Ernest Bliss by E. Phillips Oppenheim and is a remake of a 1920 film starring Henry Edwards. The Cary Grant version is pretty low-budget, projected by The Film Daily Year Book of Motion Pictures 1936 to cost 100,000 pounds to make. In the end, though, the film cost three times that amount and Motion Picture Herald seemed hopeful that the film’s studio, Garrett, Klemet Pictures, Limited would be “a new force in British Films.”
Although the titles seem a wee bit grandiose, The Amazing Adventure is a cute little movie that seemed to be well-received enough at the time of release, garnering mixed to positive reviews. Picturegoer Weekly calling it “satisfaction by proxy.” Variety gave it such adjectives as “old-fashioned,” “implausible,” “mechanical,” and “lacks credence.” The public, on the other hand, loved it, and the movie made return appearances in theaters on occasion.
Looking at it now, though, it’s definitely not one of Cary Grant’s best. He’s a little wooden, possibly because he still wasn’t quite comfortable playing a lead role, but his dry delivery and trademark elegance are definitely there, so much so that I thought no one was going to buy his Ernest Bliss as a typical working-class bloke. This is, of course, hindsight talking, because we know what was ahead of Grant.
Unfortunately there’s not a lot of information out there about The Amazing Adventure nowadays, probably because the movie fell into public domain years ago. Well, that, and it’s a little tough to track down a low-budget movie with four different titles.
And now for this month’s Pick My Movie Tag winner…
Quiggy from The Midnite Drive-in!
Quiggy’s mission, should he choose to accept it, is to review a favorite British film from the 1980s. Congrats, Quiggy! As always, if anyone would like to jump in on this tag, they can find the rules and a banner here.
Coming up in September (click on the images for more info):
All right, all, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you on Monday for another post…
The Amazing Adventure is available on DVD and is free to stream for Prime customers.
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