Monkey Business

Director: Howard Hawks
Year Released: 1952
Rating: 2.0

A brainiac with coke-bottle glasses (Cary Grant) stumbles upon a Magic Serum that he thinks bestows eternal youth ... but in all actually this recipe is just a bitter whiskey that makes you act like an idiot. Hawks tries to recapture the joy of Bringing Up Baby but this alteration of that plot doesn't pull off the same magic, as casting Grant as a dweeb is pretty much ill-advised - he's too elegant and dignified to be truly nerdy (more or less one of my minor issues with Bringing Up Baby) and the Magic Serum is basically a placebo to allow its actors to, ahem, over-act. Grant as a Native American is most certainly one of his lowest moments as a performer and the third act is a silly mess, an all-too-calculated attempt at anarchy. The point is nice, however: know who you are at every age (and be grateful you survived your own youthful years).