Honeymoon (1947) Reviews

• Diving on Top of a Gem

  Maleejandra2006-06-28

  Honeymoon is a sweet comedy starring two very capable actors. Shirley Temple is all grown up here, almost, as a seventeen year old who wants to wed her soldier boyfriend. The two plan to meet in Mexico City, but problems arise with arriving on time. They only have a short amount of time to marry so they want to make use of all the time they have as man and wife. However, absolutely everything happens to prevent that from happening. Temple enlists the help of a man from the American Consolate (Franchot Tone) to assist her, but she causes more problems for him than he could ever imagine. Temple is certainly different than the little girl everyone remembers her as. She does the same movements with her mouth, but she has matured into a very beautiful young woman. She has a knack for comedy so she excels in this film. Tone equals her. He is older than in his Joan Crawford days, but he has the same sweet face and strong acting talent. He seems to have gotten smarter over the years which enables him to be a dominant figure as well as a funny one.

• I confess ... I LOVED it!

  overseer-32006-06-11

  I admit it, I'm just a sucker for these kind of romantic comedy fluff movies! I'd much rather watch a delightful and charming romp like this than some of the greatest film dramas made! I prefer to giggle rather than weep when I watch a film. Am I alone in this preference? Somehow, I doubt it. Honeymoon stars Shirley Temple, all grown up (and looking prettier on film here than she ever did, before or after), and her character is in love with a soldier (Guy Madison) and wants to marry him, unfortunately in a foreign country. There's all kinds of paperwork to be done, so she tries to get the process expedited by using an older man, Franchot Tone (playing an American consul) as intermediary. He feels a sort of obligation to her because she's young and on her own (the soldier is supposed to meet her, but he gets sidetracked). Some very funny maneuverings keep placing her in Franchot's way, when he is trying to romance a lady of his own age, and his betrothed becomes jealous. Soon Shirley's character is developing a crush on the older man and becoming impatient with her own fiancée's boyish qualities. There's a great pool scene where Shirley walks out in a pretty and modest bathing suit, but boy! does she look simply stunning! The film has a rather conventional, predictable ending, but we still enjoy it, because it feels right anyway and is pretty funny. I wonder why the script ended with "I now pronounce you ... legally married." How odd. What happened to "man and wife"? TCM airs this May-December romance several times a year. Don't miss it, especially if you are a Shirley or Franchot fan. They're so cute together! 9 out of 10

• Engaging trifle

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  This is an engaging little trifle, the kind of innocuous fluff that was a staple of the studios during the Golden Age. Shirley Temple's films as a young adult are a mixed lot at best but this one does show off her genuine gift for comedy, certainly not as well as her next film The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer would but she does handle her role here with a deft touch. Made when she was just eighteen it also shows that as a young girl she was quite a lovely lass. Franchot Tone, that marvelous actor so often ill used by Hollywood, brings his exasperated charm to bear on his role of a put upon diplomat trying to help out Shirley and the young and impossibly handsome Guy Madison. Speaking of Guy, his role of the frustrated prospective groom doesn't really require much of him but earnest attractiveness and he fills that well. All in all silly and light as a feather this confection breaks absolutely no new ground but does showcase its stars to pleasing advantage. What more can you ask from a slight entertainment like this.

• Former little miss fix-it needs fixing as a fickle teen

  weezeralfalfa2014-06-16

  I've only seen a few of Shirley Temple's post '38 films. She was now quite a cute young woman, who was often cast as an ingénue, having trouble with her romantic life, which sometimes included a much older man, as in this film. Often, she didn't get to sing or tap dance, which had often much added to the interest of her classic child films of the 30s. In this film, she does get to sing one good romantic ballad, in a Mexican setting : "Ven Aqui"(come to me), as well as an all too brief "I love Geraniums": more the style of her '30s songs. She sounds quite good. However, I can't be sure she wasn't dubbed. Given the title, J.E. Howard's vaudevillian "Honeymoon", sung in 'I Wonder who's Kissing Her Now" would have been appropriate, except that there's no time for a honeymoon in this film! At age 18-19, in this film and in the much better received "The Bachelor and the Bobby -Soxer",also released in '47, she develops a crush on a handsome available middle-aged man, who keeps trying to brush her off, as an embarrassment. Both are essentially screwball romantic comedies. In this film, suave Franchot Tone plays this man, after he tries to help her with her various problems, trying to find her fiancé and get married in a huge rush in Mexico City. In the latter film, it's the much better known Cary Grant in Tone's place. Thus, instead of her frequent childhood roles in helping fix the personal relationships of the adults, she often needs her own romantic life fixed in these late teen roles. I had seen Tone in a similar role in Universal's previous "That Night with You", costarring singing sensation Suzanne Foster, in her last Hollywood film. In both films, the young woman develops a crush on middle -aged playboy Tone, while simultaneously having a young boyfriend. In both films, clearly, the implied message is that this is developing into a 'sick' relationship, best left as a father/daughter type relationship. Never mind that plenty of other films in this era featured an aging male icon and a decades younger romantic interest as perfectly OK. The present film more emphasizes comedy, especially concerning Tone, whereas Suzanne's periodic singing, often in imaginative situations, more permeates the interest of the earlier film. Lina Romay, who play's Tone's Mexican girlfriend, often served as a singer and light dancer for '40s bands, especially that of Xavier Cugat. She's seen in the occasional '40s film, either as a specialty singer/dancer, or in a straight dramatic role, or both, as in the present film....Guy Madison(as Phil), in one of his earliest film roles, is Shirley's handsome soldier fiancé ,who seems more eager to marry her than she him, especially since he has only a few days leave. Much of the screenplay depends on a series of contrived coincidences that keep Tone's character, who is the US consul to Mexico, dealing with the continuing troubles of the young couple. First, they can't find a doctor to certify their physical health. Then, it's discovered that Shirley is underage for marriage without parental consent, and that she claimed to be already married, in order to qualify for a Mexican tourist visa! Then, she gets mad at Phil and wants to call the wedding off. We get the impression these 2 people barely know each other! In mimicry of her reported introduction to Phil, she dives off a pool spring board and lands on Tone, swimming in the pool. After regaining consciousness in Tone's apt., it's clear this collision has scrambled her brain a bit, causing her to chase Tone around the room, as her new love. Tone tries to talk her into renewing her marriage plans with Phil, but she's not receptive. He threatens to spank her, but instead, she throws him to the floor(hilarious). This is followed by the entrance of Phil, who carries her to the pool, throws her off the diving board, then jumps on top of her, to symbolically displace Tone, as her again boyfriend. Yes, this running gag is quite silly....Finally, some highly contrived political maneuvering quickly solves the legal problems relating to their marriage. The film ends with them saying "I do", while Tone and Romay seem to have patched things up, though we don't know if Tone will squirm out of a marriage. Of course, in mimicry of the screen play, Shirley had married a serviceman when she was 17. But, unlike the screenplay, she was more enthusiastic about marriage than her husband: John Agar, who turned out to be psychologically ill-equipped at this time to deal with her celebrity nor with only one romantic partner. Hence, she was still in this rocky marriage while making this film. This film is presently viewable at You Tube. If you like this sort of zany comedy, I can recommend it as moderately entertaining nonsense. It bombed at the box office. Tone may not be as famous nor quite as talented a comedian as Grant, but he does a good job in this comedy. This film somewhat reminds me of "The Clock", released at the end of WWII, in which Judy Garland's character is talked into a whirlwind marriage by a soldier on a short leave in NYC. They go through a rather similar hectic time of trying to circumvent all the bureaucratic delays in getting a marriage license in very short notice. However, there's no love triangle and no singing. Overall, it's a more serious film.

• Too cute for words...routine assignment for adult Shirley Temple...

  Doylenf2001-10-15

  Frothy, bubbly romantic comedies are supposed to get off the ground and sail into the air with ease. No such luck with 'Honeymoon'. The whole story is a trivial bit of nonsense about a girl who elopes to Mexico City to find her serviceman husband and get married. When a vice consul attempts to help her, he gets caught in romantic complications of his own with a jealous fiance. And that's it. The slim plot gets adequate performances from the three leads: Shirley Temple, Franchot Tone and Guy Madison. Madison is less wooden than usual and manages to add a likeable personality to his handsome good looks. Shirley pouts and speaks childishly of her love for him until she starts to fall for Tone. It's all very silly and quite predictable. All it does is pass the time in a modestly entertaining way but don't expect anything special. Shirley is even given a romantic ballad to sing but it doesn't sound like her own voice. Since this was made before Marni Nixon got busy, you have to wonder who it was. Summing up: Passes the time pleasantly enough but worthwhile only for true Temple fans who want to see her as a pretty young woman.