Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 13-April-03
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Houseboat (1958)

Once you get a handle on the premise of "Houseboat" --- a single dad struggling with three kids hires a gorgeous young woman to help him --- you pretty much know what is going to happen, based on Hollywood's long tradition of family fantasies and romantic comedies. And seeing as how "Houseboat" stars Cary Grant and Sophia Loren, you know it's going to be a sexy, stylish affair. (And, since it was made in the 1950s, it's no big surprise that Loren sings a stupid theme song over and over and over. What is it with '50s movies and the singing? I don't get it.) But what you may not be prepared for when you watch this film is the amount of thought, bordering on philosophizing, that lies within it. "Houseboat" may look like your average romantic journey, but it moves in a current of unusual depth.

Grant's character, Tom Winters, is a diplomat living in Washington DC who assumes responsibility for his three children after the death of his wife, from whom he has been separated for several years. The kids, not surprisingly, are none too happy to find themselves being carted off to a cramped apartment with a virtual stranger while still in mourning. The first to act out is Robert (Charles Herbert), who runs away after a concert and meets up with another fugitive from an unhappy home, the voluptuous Cinzia (Loren), who has come from Italy on tour with her musician father. In a charming scene of uncommon courtship, Cinzia and Robert bond on the dance floor, and she ends up returning him to his father. This leads to her employment with the Winters family as their maid and nanny, and before too long the motley crew ends up on a dilapidated old houseboat (don't ask). There, it's up to them to make the boat into a home, and themselves into a family.

Marvelously and uncharacteristically, all three children come across as likable people instead of cutesy dolls or naughty little martyrs, which goes a long way toward grounding the picture's fairy tale aspects. Although Tom and Cinzia's inevitable romance is spiced up by a love triangle with his sister-in-law (Martha Hyer), as well as some last-minute cultural and class problems, the real meat of the story is how all the residents of the houseboat learn to get along with each other. In addition to Robert's continuing anger over the loss of his mother, there's a touching struggle of the older boy (Paul Petersen) as he moves into adulthood, and the simple yearning of the little girl (Mimi Gibson) just to have someone love her. And, of course, Tom's fate is not only to find Signorina Right, but also to become a real father instead of a workaholic who is used to caring only for Number One.

The boat, in addition to making a nice backdrop, is clearly meant to serve as a metaphor for the necessary and proper flux of a well lived life -- the characters are all on a journey to their better selves, with love and family as their reward. On a less personal level, "Houseboat" also contains a bit of social commentary on the state of American family life as the '50s were coming to a close. This theme is developed through the contrast of Cinzia and Carolyn, Tom's sister-in-law. At the beginning of the movie, the prim, blonde Carolyn sardonically describes her loveless relationship with her husband as something like "a modern marriage, with the electric blankets and everything," and later on we see why she needs such a contraption --- she and her husband sleep in separate beds (and his is usually empty). By contrast, Cinzia tells a curious Elizabeth that in Italy, married couples always share one bed. With her dark complexion, slightly disheveled look, and wide, ungirdled hips, Cinzia bursts in upon the Winters like an Old World goddess come to save them from their country-clubbing, scrubbed-linoleum lives, in which even families have become well ordered systems of roles and regimentation. Without really moralizing, "Houseboat" makes the point that families are simply groups of individuals who look out for one another on the road of life, and while this is not the easiest thing to do, it is certainly one of the most important.

Copyright © 2003 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.