Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

Jim Blandings writes advertising copy in Manhattan and lives with his wife and two daughters in a cramped apartment. He finds a two hundred year old farmhouse in Connecticut and buys it. The house has to come down, a new one goes up, and the cost multiplies at every step: the well gives no water, the ledge needs dynamite, and a war breaks out over the number of closets. H. C. Potter directs, with Cary Grant as Blandings, Myrna Loy as his wife Muriel and Melvyn Douglas as the family lawyer Bill. The source is Eric Hodgins's 1946 novel, and the novel is not invention. Hodgins really did build a house in Connecticut, the cost nearly ruined him, and he wrote about it first in Fortune. The promotion became a story in its own right. David O. Selznick had RKO's publicity department send blueprints of the set house to builders across the country, hoping a hundred cities would put one up. Seventy three did. More than sixty were fitted out by General Electric, and many were sold off by raffle. The Money Pit, in 1986, is the same story told again. Who it is for: anyone who likes classic Hollywood comedy and recognises the unchanging misery of home renovation. Who it is not for: this is a product of its moment through and through. The wife's position in the story, and the household's relationship with its Black housekeeper, sit badly now.