Cary Grant loses the battle of the sexes in Dream Wife.

Dream Wife marked the first of three movies starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. While their second pairing in An Affair to Remember would be their most famous, this first outing is a funny (if dated) romantic comedy that provides plenty of laughs.

Grant plays Clem, a businessman engaged to Kerr's Effie. To Clem's chagrin, Effie is a workaholic at the State Department who's more interested in an upcoming oil deal with Bukistan then she is with her own upcoming nuptials. When Effie tells him that they'll need to postpone the wedding while she works out the details of the deal, Clem decides that he's had enough and cancels the wedding altogether.

What Clem wants is an old fashioned girl who'll tend to his every whim and he thinks he's found her in Bukistan's Princess Tarji and he soon proposes to her. The State Department, not wanting anything to go wrong and disturb their relationship with Bukistan, places Effie in charge of making sure the wedding goes smoothly. Not content with just shepherding the wedding, Effie decides to make Tarji her protege and educate her in the ways of the modern American woman.

Sure the plot is gimmicky and borders on sitcom-like battle of the sexes humor at times, but thanks to Kerr and especially Grant, it works. Grant is one of the greatest romantic comedy leads of all time and he helps raise the plot far above itself. Kerr is also good, playing the strong willed woman who eventually succumbs to Grant's peerless charms.

Perhaps it's not surprising that the plot resembles a sitcom since it was written by Sydney Sheldon who would go on to write for The Patty Duke Show and create and write I Dream of Jeanie. Sheldon also directs the film and he keeps things light and peppy with just the right amount of silliness. Sheldon also wrote the earlier Grant film, The Bachelor and Bobby Soxer.

As is seemingly true of every Hollywood portrayal of a battle of the sexes, it is the women who seem to come out on top. Poor Clem never stands a chance when Effie teaches Traji about several historical American women.

Grant would certainly make better known films as well as funnier and more romantic ones, but even in a comedy as light and broad as this one he brings plenty of comic skill and timing to the table. Yet again here he shows that he was indeed one of Hollywood's greatest male leads of all time.

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