Once Upon a Honeymoon 1942

     This film is also titled International Honeymoon.  At the start of WWII, Katie O’Hara is an American burlesque girl with a goal of social climbing.  She marries Austrian Baron Von Luber.  Pat O'Toole, an American radio reporter sees this as a chance to investigate Von Luber.  He is suspected of having Nazi ties.  As country after country falls to the Nazis, O'Tool follows O'Hara across Europe.  At first he is after a story but he gradually falls in love with O’Hara.  When she learns that her husband is indeed a Nazi, O'Hara fakes her death and runs off to be with O'Toole.  In Paris, she is recruited to spy for the allies and O’Toole uses a radio broadcast to make Von Luber and the Nazis look like fools!!

     This film was a box office hit and made RKO a profit of $282,000.  Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers stumble into an alternative Nazi world in this film.  It is a stab at the enemy while delivering a screwy Cary Grant charm-number with Ginger as an adorable scam artist.  They are looking for class in all the wrong places!!  Not very suspenseful but the comedy is very satisfying.  It is fascinating to see Walter Slezak in his first Hollywood movie.  He is one of the Nazi characters, an older and rounder Michael is not the most believable Nazi?  He lends a kind of charm to his bad guy persona.  Sometimes this movie doesn’t know what direction it should take??  Grant and Ginger tackle their roles in a bizarrely amusing WWII setting.
   
117 min, Adventure directed by Leo McCarey and written by Sheridan Gibney with Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, Walter Slezak, Albert Dekker, Albert Bassermann, Ferike Boros, John Banner, Harry Shannon, Natasha Lytess.
   
Note:  Imdb 6.85* out of 10* with 2635 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 59% with 1000+ audience scores, Letterboxd 3.1* out of 5*, Fandango 59% audience, score, Amazon 4.3* out of 5* with 179 ratings, RadioTimes 2* out of 5* Tony Sloman.

Special Note:  The release date was November 27 1942.  At the beginning of this film, Cary Grant tells Ginger Rogers that he will always remember her character as "just the way you look tonight!” This comment caused a smirk from Rogers.  The line alludes to the song of the same title Fred Astaire sang to Rogers in Swing Time (1936).  Berlin-born Natasha Lytess appears in a small role as the Jewish hotel maid.  Natasha was Marilyn Monroe’s acting coach and friend for many years.  Released in the first year of World War II for the US.  This is one of the first Hollywood films to actually mention the word "Jewish" and to deal with the refugee problem at this time.  

Mistakes:  The story starts in 1938 and continues through 1939 and 1940.  All of Ginger Rogers clothes and hairstyles are strictly very 1942.  The photographer says that seven countries have already fallen.  At this point in the war actually eight had fallen, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Holland and Belgium.  While the Baron is interrogating Ms. O'Hara at the hotel in Paris (after the photographer is killed and she's arrested), the cross suspended from the Baron's neck disappears and reappears between shots.