Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Mark Turner I remember seeing FATHER GOOSE years ago. My best recollection of it makes me think I saw it at the drive in with my family. I know I saw it often growing up when it was on TV back before cable stations controlled all the classic films. Now it's being offered on blu ray in a great version from Olive Films.The story revolves around Walter (Cary Grant), a loner who's left the world behind to live off his wits in the south pacific. Unfortunately this is during World War II and the Japanese in the islands may change his intended course. Walter is shanghaied into working for the allies as a spotter on a remote island where he's left shipwrecked by an "accidental" bump into his boat. With supplies and whiskey on hand he should have no problem helping them. And to make sure he's sober enough to do so, they've hidden the whiskey until he spots something and it's confirmed.When word reaches the allies that another spotter may have been found they lure Walter into helping rescue the man. He arrives to find the man now buried. At the same time he discovers there is a teacher and a group of young girls also there who need his help. Taking them with him back to his island the film becomes a comedy of wills as the teacher Catherine (Leslie Caron) sets about taking over the place until help can rescue her and the girls.With the Japanese in the area the best the allies can promise is a rescue in a week. In the meantime Walter continues trying to fix his boat, finding the bottles of whiskey the teacher has hidden so he won't drink in front of the impressionable girls and trying not to go crazy as his way of life is changed. In the process he begins to lighten up his disposition and take a paternal turn towards the young girls and a romantic interest in Catherine.The set up and follow through here is fairly routine but that doesn't matter. It isn't the substance of the story that matters here as much as the fun placed all around it. The interaction between the gruff Walter and the girls is priceless and full of good humor. The romance is subtle and never intrusive. And there is just enough of a touch of action to make it seem fairly real for a movie made around this time.In reading the liner notes and watching the extras I learned something I wasn't aware of. As much of a leading man as Grant was and for all of the acclaimed movies he'd made he'd never won an Oscar and it bothered him. While his fellow stars of the time were winning he was overlooked. But all of his roles seemed alike, the debonair man about town who was pursued by the female lead. He had said he was retiring from movies but after speaking with Alfred Hitchcock who told him he needed to play against type, he was presented this script which gave him the opportunity to do so.This film was his attempt at winning that long coveted Oscar. The end results was that he didn't even get nominated. It was 2 years before he made another film and that was his last. Fortunately Hollywood recognized the error of their ways and eventually he was presented with an Oscar for his lifetime achievement in film.The movie here offers plenty of laughs and entertainment to boot. And Olive Films is releasing this as part of their Olive Signature Series which means you'll get the best quality print as well as some interesting extras. This version is a 4k restoration from the original camera negative. The extras include an audio commentary track featuring film historian David Del Valle, UNFINISHED BUSINESS: CARY GRANT'S SEARCH FOR FATHERHOOD AND HIS Oscar with Grant biographer Marc Eliot, MY FATHER an interview with internet pioneer Ted Nelson discussing his father director Ralph Nelson, Universal Newsreel footage featuring Leslie Caron and an essay by VILLAGE VOICE critic Bilge Ebiri.Fans of Grant will want to add this version of the film to their collection as will sixties film fans. It is a treat for those who remember movies like this and who want to enjoy yet another Cary Grant classic.

dimplet This movie comes dangerously close to being a stinker. The Cary Grant and Leslie Caron characters are both a bit exaggerated, Grant with his constantly sucking on a bottle but never appearing drunk, and Caron with her manipulative primness. We know Caron is going to do a Katherine Hepburn to Grant's Bogie in African Queen, and confiscate the liquor, and eventually get him to put on some clean clothes.And, of course, they're going to fall in love. But get married? There's not much of a transition here; at least Grant could have confessed how afraid he was she was going to die, or something. It's a real weak spot in the script, but then I guess this is sort of a children's movie, or at least one of those early Sixties family movies, a la Disney.I'm as shocked and mystified as anyone that this won an Oscar for best original screenplay. But then the good stuff, like Dr. Strangelove, Goldfinger, My Fair Lady and even Mary Poppins were based on books, and so didn't qualify. Speaking of My Fair Lady, can you believe Grant turned down Henry Higgins to be in this mediocrity? And he had hopes of Audrey Hepburn stooping to co-star, although I must admit, she would have been good in the role, as always. I wish Caron had played it more like Caron, with more class and finesse, and less anger.I saw this when I was a kid, and found it reasonably amusing. Viewing it from an older perspective, I can sympathize a lot more with Grant's character. The strongest section is the beginning, when he is being strong-armed into being an island watcher, the antithesis of South Pacific's Emile De Becque. The little girls certainly do a good job of being annoying, and providing a bachelor with good reason for retaining this status.Grant provides enough edginess to avoid turning this into a saccharine Disney number. He delivers a well-balanced comedic performance. But the roles are fairly generic, and other actors who could have played the lead, include Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon or Walter Matthau.What makes Father Goose most interesting, from a cinematic perspective, is that it came only a year after director Ralph Nelson's masterpiece, Lilies of the Field. This was a heart-warming story not unlike Father Goose, of a reluctant hero dragged into doing his duty by a bunch of women. But it was a gentle, slow movie grounded in realism. I wonder if Father Goose could have been made with a similar approach? Instead, we have slightly unrealistic acting matched with a somewhat improbable story. It might have been better had it been more believable. It might have been more dramatic, but then it might not have been as funny.As to one comment about it being "sexist," that's hilarious. What do you expect the little girls to do, grab a machine gun and mow down the Japanese sailors? Swim out and attach a mine to the Japanese patrol boat? Father Goose is very much a product of its time: an early Sixties mainstream comedy. And that's the way it was.Oh, as to the mystery of the screenplay Oscar, perhaps it had something to do with writer Frank Tarloff having been blacklisted during the Fifties for being an "unfriendly witness" before the HUAC committee, and having moved to England. He wrote under assumed names, but what, I do not know. Perhaps the award was a surrogate for some of his work under a pseudonym.Father Goose is not a masterpiece, even of its genre, but it is reasonably entertaining, and holds up fairly well. It could have been better, from an adult perspective, but no one involved needs to apologize. Most of all, it is good, clean family fun, which might be why some reviewers are so ecstatic about it.

Robert J. Maxwell I know the plot sounds awful -- Cary Grant marooned on an island with Leslie Caron and half a dozen young girls -- but I found this pretty consistently funny. Of course you can predict just about everything that happens but it's so well written and the cast good enough that it should entertain most people.Grant is a grizzled, irritable, hard-drinking loner in New Guinea at the start of World War II and is finessed by the local Navy Commander, Trevor Howard, into manning a coast watcher station on an isolated island. Howard and his crew have buried bottles of whiskey around the thatch-roofed hut and arranged for the location of one bottle to be revealed with each confirmed sighting of Japanese aircraft or ships.Before long, circumstances force Grant to accommodate Caron and her diverse little charges -- two French, one Australian, and the rest British. There follow innumerable conflicts, small and large, as the unshaven, slovenly Grant is forced to sleep on his boat and does his best to avoid the kids, grumbling at their disruption of his unique life style and Weltanschaung.Largely because of Grant's superb comic timing and his expressive features and body language, the encounters are far more often funny than silly. Nor are they over-written. Example: While the others are out somewhere, Grant sneaks back into the hut to search for the whiskey that Caron has hidden from him -- again. One child has been left behind and she stares at him silently as he rummages through the junk. Balked, frustrated, he glances sideways at her, there is a lengthy pause, then he speaks: "Beat it." Example two: Believing Caron to have been fatally bitten by a venomous snake, Grant cuts the wound and sucks on it, then gets her drunk to make her death easier. Caron: "What did it taste like -- my blood." Grant: "How would I know? I'm not a vampire." Caron: "Was it salty?" Grant is nonplussed: "Well, a LITTLE salty." Caron: "OHH, was it TOO salty?" Grant (at his wit's end): "No -- it was JUST RIGHT." Caron sobs a little and says: "No, I know it was too salty." On the screen, with Cary Grant at his best and Caron doing a fine job, it's not nearly as ridiculous as it sounds. Grant delivers exactly the right measure of chagrin.It's not an important film, not enough to go on about, but it's largely effective and should keep the kids laughing as well as the adults. The alcohol abuse we see is genteel. Grant swigs it straight out of the bottle but it's good Black & White scotch and he's never drunk. He is naturally reformed at the end. He even drinks a non-alcoholic beverage at dinner. "Coconut milk. Mmmm. Young coconuts must love it."

thinker1691 During WWII many an island coast watcher were found not only useful, but often invaluable to the Allies in the Pacific. In this zany but delightful comedy, the film " Father Goose " takes Cary Grant and nearly replicates his actual persona. He plays Walter Eckland a crusty, middle age, south seas beachcomber with no intention of changing his lay-back lifestyle simply because there is a major war taking place. However, his lifetime friend Frank Houghton (Trevor Howard) once harbor master, now a Naval Commander for the British Navy and his aid Lieutenant Stebbings (Jack Good) convince him to join the coast watching service. Having little choice, Eckland reluctantly agrees. Things are tolerant enough for him as long as he's stuck alone on a deserted island keeping an eye on the Japanese navy when overnight, he's invaded by a bevy of preteen girls. They not only disturb Eckland's solitary existence, but completely disrupt his once peaceful solitude. The girls' prissy guardian/governess, Catherine Freneau (Leslie Caron) immediately sets out to make the best of a difficult situation and that includes altering the reclusive life of reluctant Father Goose. This movie was listed among Grant's favorites and watching it, easily becomes an audience Classic as well. ****