Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

JohnHowardReid No record of copyright, though allegedly copyrighted in 1953 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn picture. New York opening at the Rivoli: 29 July 1953. U.S. release: 19 June 1953. U.K. release: 13 July 1953. Australian release: 5 August 1953. 99 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Clemson Reade, who wants a wife in the home, not in business, breaks with Effie, a State Department official who is too busy with an oil crisis to have time for matrimony. Remembering a comely princess, Tarji, whom he met on a trip to Bukistan and the fact that she had been schooled from birth in the art of pleasing men, Reade proposes via cable. Because of the oil situation, the State Department steps in and assigns Effie to see that her ex-fiancé sticks to protocol in his new courtship. The princess comes to the United States, but the feminine craft of Effie soon has Tarji figuring that emancipation is more fun than being a dream wife.COMMENT: Whatever promise this one-joke romantic comedy may have had, is negated by a conventional plot and strictly routine direction - this was the first film screenwriter Sidney Sheldon (Annie Get Your Gun, Anything Goes) directed, the first of two, the other being The Buster Keaton Story, the direction of which has even less to commend it than Dream Wife has. Doubtless Cary Grant (Sheldon was involved in the writing of Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer) had something to do with the assignment of Sheldon to this pic. Be this as it may, the direction is as stolidly unimaginative as can be, and whatever humor was in the original screenplay has been effectively smothered by Sheldon's heavy handling. Deborah Kerr, in some stunning Helen Rose costumes, looks absolutely ravishing and while she has the best of everything - clothes, camera angles, coiffure - Betta St John is also allowed to make some impression as the princess; but the two other attractive young lasses in the cast, Patricia Tiernan as Miss Kerr's secretary and Mary Lawrence as Mrs Malvine get hardly a look-in. Walter Pidgeon has virtually nothing to do and Bruce Bennett has a miniscule role. Take-any-job Grant walks through the proceedings with his usual not-too-involved air. There are a few chuckles in the script. Trimmed to 75 or even 80 minutes, it might make passable entertainment. Production values are moderate. Miss Kerr gets the lion's share of behind-the camera attention.

edwagreen Miserable picture with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. 4 years later they teamed again to make the memorable "An Affair to Remember." That was a movie! This was utter junk, at it's worst.We are fully aware of the cultural differences between the Middle East and our culture. Kerr looked like she was annoyed with the whole film and rightfully so!We know of the subservience of the Middle Eastern woman to the man. They didn't have to highlight this. The young lady sure learned quickly about American mores and she acted the part accordingly.Walter Pidgeon had little to do here and this wasn't the way for Bruce Bennett to be ending his acting career, or for Richard Anderson to begin his.How are they going to keep them down on the farm, after they've seen Paris? Easy. Keep away from this putrid film.Am so tired of seeing an American or British woman who is totally immersed in her career to a point that she will forsake marriage and family. Hillary Clinton and other ladies, you've come a long way ladies!

bkoganbing In Stewart Granger's memoirs he mentions that after seeing future wife Jean Simmons in Black Narcissus, he was so overcome with sexual desire that he felt he had to marry her. It's almost as if Sidney Sheldon had a few drinks with Granger and was told this story years before it came out and decided it would make a great movie plot.Cary Grant is an oil executive and Deborah Kerr a female diplomat in the previously all male world of Foggy Bottom in the not too distant past. In negotiating for oil leases with the mythical kingdom of Bukistan, Cary is really bowled over by the fact that Princess Betta St. John is so unlike the career minded Kerr. A few words here and there and the engagement between Grant and Kerr is off and between Grant and St. John is definitely on.Of course the culture clash occurs and it ain't quite what Grant envisions. And Kerr starts to work on St.John and she's got some new ideas sprouting in her head.The Fifties were so different than now. Those kind of ideas in some Moslem countries would have gotten St. John killed now. Relations between the west and the Moslem world has certainly changed over 50 years. Grant and Kerr make fine leads and notice should be paid to Walter Pidgeon as Kerr's State Department boss and to Eduard Franz as the King of Bukistan who turns out to be a very wise fellow indeed.I wonder what Stewart Granger must have thought in seeing this film?

Jonathan Doron Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr are a wonderful couple. Throwing each other line after line with Grant's usual and very his -facial expressions. The dinner scene between the two in the beginning is a blast. The whole beginning is great, funny, very promising, but it's obvious where it's going plot-wise, and with the plot the movie flops. The funny scenes become scarce, predictable and I just waited for it to end. Walter Pidgeon must be one of the best supporting actors ever. Catch the first 30 minutes or so than stop watching, or just pass. Nice idea that went wrong.PS How that "Dream wife" of his learns English so quickly is absolutely amazing! She does speak with a few mistakes, of course.