Best movie of this year hands down!

Just so...so bad

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Who would believe that a film like this with such hard-boiled and often sexual dialog (as well as a baby murder!) would have been approved by the overly censorious Hays code in the mid 1930's? I sat there stunned by the witty dialog that seemed closer to things that Mae West or Jean Harlow might have said to Cary Grant three years before than Joan Bennett did to him here. The result is one of the most delightful surprises and a film that is certainly worthy of re-visiting just to catch everything each of them says to each other in this delightful screwball comedy with a touch of social relevance tossed in.Yes, Cary Grant plays a cop here, and Joan Bennett seems to go from every occupation from waitress to reporter to manicurist in less than 90 minutes. She's so hard boiled that it is surprising that Grant is able to crack her shell. The film surrounds a series of jewel robberies (a plot favorite in the 1930's), and in order to catch a thief, Grant utilizes Bennett's position on a big New York city paper that seems to focus more on scandals than detailing world news. Bennett, obviously in love with him, is jealous of his connection with robbery victim Marjorie Gateson, and obviously for no reason. Walter Pidgeon is a private investigator involved in trying to get to the bottom of the robberies, so it is no surprise when it turns out that he is involved! There's also Lloyd Nolan as a gangster whose shoot-out with fellow gangsters ends up with an innocent baby being killed in Central Park.Bennett helps crack the case by getting one of the witnesses to crack in fear of his own life. Her way of doing this is ingenious, and I will not spoil that by revealing it here. Let me just say it is brilliant. If the murder of the baby isn't shocking enough, then there's the trial of the accused and the inevitable betrayal of each gangster from the other, indicating that these criminals are fine as long as each racket is going along swimmingly, but they are the first to either point the finger at the other or wipe them out when things start to fall apart.As for that crackling screenplay, I wanted to start writing down each of Bennett's great lines, but no sooner had I started writing down the first line, she was on her third, then fourth crack, which made it impossible for me to continue that task. It's great to see these veteran stars whom many younger viewers may only remember from their later parts (in Ms. Bennett's case, either "Father of the Bride" or the TV soap "Dark Shadows"), and that deep, haunting voice of hers is a delight to behold. Grant, too, gets a lot of great retorts to each of her remarks, and their sexual chemistry is undeniable.Pre-Greer Garson leading man Walter Pidgeon is as far from Mr. Miniver or Mr. Parkington or Monsieur Curie as he can be here, a villain that seems so sure of himself that he'll never get caught. Marjorie Gateson is very amusing as the Billie Burke society matron and gets to recite some hysterically funny malapropisms. Why this film hasn't become better known among the screwball comedy's of this era is beyond me. This is the type of film that while not excellent is certainly worth many repeat viewings and one I wouldn't mind seeing shown as part of a big screen revival house.

Big Brown Eyes would have been a big fat bomb if Cary Grant hadn't carried the movie. Even in such an early picture (1936) his debonair, yet cheeky gentleman style is evident. Playing a detective seemed odd, yet no matter what role he is cast in, he makes it his own. His romantic interest, Joan Bennett, seemed a tad too hard around the edges to play his girlfriend, but she did manage some decent repertoire with Grant, especially when the packing scene in Grant's apartment. Overall, the picture is uneven. It can't decide if it is a serious crime/drama or a light comedy. There is a scene where a stray bullet kills a baby (intimated) and there is nothing funny about that. Another scene a man is shot while arranging roses. It's incongruent action like these scenes that makes this movie just short of unwatchable. I have yet to see a Cary Grant movie that I didn't like, and this one seems a practice for his all out great flick His Gal Friday. Big Brown Eyes is watchable, only because of Cary Grant.

It's not hard to figure out why this one is a firm favorite with cultists on the one hand and yet is despised by critics and the general picturegoing public on the other. A picture that makes a glamor hero of a brutal baby-killer is not likely to win many friends except among the corduroy set. Nor is its sassy heroine who twists the law into her own brittle hands and easily outshines the nominal hero in righting wrongs going to be adopted as idol-of-the-month by the Bible belt (despite a number of Biblical precedents).This said, however, for those of us who like to see and even more especially to hear Joan Bennett brilliantly outclass rushing hither-and-thither Cary Grant and debonair detective-about-town Walter Pidgeon, "Big Brown Eyes" (I assume the title refers to Joan) is a must.Also to be reckoned with are Lloyd Nolan who manages to pull off an extremely difficult role, and Douglas Fowley giving the best performance of his career. If you don't literally jump out of your seat like I did during the scene in which Fowley exits the friendly police station, you shouldn't be watching vintage movies.Raoul Walsh has directed all the proceedings here with admirable style, polish and economy. Production values are absolutely first class.

This little movie is more than forgotten. It is so mundane that no one has decided they can make a nickle from it, despite having some of the very same features and creative crew as projects that are celebrated. Cary Grant is about the same here, as in, say, "Charade."I have to admit, it is flat. It all can be laid at the feet of the writer, I suppose.These comedies are delicate. I suppose they cannot be engineered, like so much in film can. Oh, the execution can of course, but if the writer doesn't froth intuitively, nothing can spin it in after the fact.But then again, this was the 30's where experimentation was the rule. And I suppose you need several failures before you get a "His Girl Friday" (which this resembles) out of so many tries.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.