Kiss and Make-Up (1934) User Reviews

Underratedly wacky comedy

[robb_772 · 7/10 · 12 December 2006]

An underrated picture of veritable wackiness, KISS AND MAKE UP is a forerunner to the classic screwball comedies of the late-thirties and early-forties. The storyline of a progressive plastic surgeon (Cary Grant) who becomes involved with his greatest creation (Genevieve Tobin) has a great FRANKENSTEIN-esquire aura that contains some surprisingly dark overtones for a film comedy of this era – a darkness which is present, but not really explored. The film is benefited greatly by Cary Grant, who gets an early chance to display his grand prowess at farce, which is one of the many qualities that inevitably made him a huge Hollywood star. The rest of the cast is also rounded out acceptably, with Tobin, Helen Mack, and Edward Everett Horton all turning in fine work.

On the downside, the film is extremely episodic, which is not inherently a problem in many cases, but here it prevents the picture from gelling into the knockabout farce it intended to be. Also somewhat detrimental is director Harlan Thompson's approach to the material, which often lacks energy or pizazz; make no mistake, Thompson's work is perfectly acceptable, but I could not help but imagine how truly dynamic the film could have been with Howard Hawks or (later) Peter Bogdanovich in the director's chair. Thompson earns major points for the frantic final chase scene, however, which concludes the film with a thunderous, side-splitting, wig-ripping bang! The movie as a whole is solidly enjoyable, but this terrific end sequence alone raises it's rating by at least a notch or two.

Enjoyable Movie!

[deeskodi · 7/10 · 1 September 2019]

I prefer to watch the classics of the 30's 40's & 50's over any of the mindless garbage todays writers come up with.

Early Cary Grant film is an entertaining romantic comedy

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 15 October 2020]

Cary Grant is Dr. Maurice Lamar, a Parisian plastic surgeon and beauty expert with a large fanbase of women, both previous and current clients, who adore him for his work and his looks. Rich husband Marcel (Edward Everett Horton) implores Dr. Lamar to not work on his homely wife, but the doctor does so anyway, and the newly beautified Eve (Genevieve Tobin) leaves her husband for the doctor. Meanwhile, Lamar's secretary Anne (Helen Mack) has secretly been in love with the doctor for a long time, but when he starts seeing Eve, she begins seeing Marcel, with the resulting inter-couple shenanigans. Also featuring Lucien Littlefield, Toby Wing, Mona Maris, Henry Armetta, and the "WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1934", including Julie Bishop, Gigi Parrish, and Helen (daughter of George M.) Cohan. 19-year-old Ann Sheridan also appears in a minor part.

This is a mix of several comedy styles: the European sophistication of an Ernst Lubitsch film, the screwball antics that would shortly become so popular, and even some broad slapstick, with a car-chase finale that seems lifted from a Keystone Kops short. Grant is good here, showing many of the qualities of his well-know screen persona. He sings a song at one point, and his warbling vocal isn't too awful. Mack and Tobin are okay in the female leads, but this may have been better with others in their roles. Horton is reliably funny. This was the final year of the WAMPAS Baby Stars lists of promising young actresses, a promotional endeavor started by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers back in 1922. "Baby Star" was another term for "starlet" back then, if the name confused anyone like it did me. While previous lists had included the likes of Joan Crawford, Clara Bow, Ginger Rogers, Mary Astor, and Fay Wray, this final year's roster didn't include any luminaries, with the biggest future name in the pretty-background-girl cast (Ann Sheridan) not on the list. Jean Negulesco is listed as "associate director".

Plot summary of Kiss and Make Up

[Debbie-24 · 9 October 1998]

Dr. Maurice Lamar is a world famous, egotistical, Parisian plastic surgeon. He prides himself on making women slaves to their new beauty. Maintenance, always maintenance. Overt innuendo abounds that his patients, once transformed by his skilled hand, become his conquests. His affairs he refers to as "lovely episodes."

Enamored of his masterpiece, Madame Caron, they soon ditch her husband and marry. We soon see that "Dr. Frankenstein" has married his monster. The moral of the story is that Dr. Lamar discovers that it's no fun to love (Kiss) a woman,when that same woman has become obsessed with her looks, figure and Makeup to the exclusion of all else. Beauty, truly, is in the eye of the beholder.

Eye candy in occasionally great set design

[manuel-pestalozzi · 7/10 · 14 August 2007]

I liked this movie more than I had expected. It is a light comedy that kept me entertained throughout. At one moment we see an American couple going to a traditional Italian restaurant (chequered tablecloths, vines overhead and all) ordering corned beef and cabbage. As if this weren't enough, they break out in song: I love - cooorned beef and cabbage! It's disarmingly silly. Dark haired lead actress Helen Mack is cute and funny, a kind of an early Holly Hunter.

Kiss and Make-Up delivers mainly eye candy. At the center of its story is a beauty parlor in Paris which is also a gym and a clinic with the general aim to improve the physical appearance of the female. Cary Grant is the owner and boss of the outfit and supposed to be a kind of a health guru who helps nature along with creams and ointments etc. which he also markets through radio programs and books (a kind of Dr Lovell?).

A great many beautiful girls and bare legs are on display, and the whole set up of the parlor is just as good and elegant as one designed by famous set designer Cedric Gibbons for the later made, more famous movie The Women. Also very notable is some of the set design during the middle part of the movie which takes place in a Mediterranean holiday resort. It is clearly inspired by the Italian version of Art Deco, with curved walls and furniture, circular windows, slender railings and discreet floor patterns. The hotel suite of the couple played by Grant and Genevieve Tobin features a kind of a gallery on very slender chromium pillars in front of a huge window which leads to a big terrace with a view of a historical Italian town on a sea or a lake shore. It's just great to imagine those smart people sitting in a Hollywood bungalow leafing through the latest issues of Italian architectural magazines like Casabella or Domus.

For Gosh sakes, it's a silly movie, yes, but it's also a pre-code funfest

[barrymn1 · 7/10 · 27 November 2006]

maybe I'm a fool for silly Depression comedies, but even though "Kiss And Make-Up" is a very minor comedy, and not particularly well written, it does have most of the elements needed for people who love pre-code Depression films to enjoy it.

Everybody knows that Cary Grant's Paramount films were generally weak, and that he was nowhere close to establishing his screen personality during these early years.

I had never seen this film before, and I quite enjoyed it. But, jeez, gang, you haven't lived until you've heard Cary Grant, Helen Mack and Edward Everett Horton attempt to belt out the songs! Absolutely incredible. Some of the worst examples of singing in a film from a major studio.

You will enjoy it too....if you sit back and not expect a "Citizen Kane"-quality screenplay!

Love Divided By Two

[lugonian · 4/10 · 28 May 2005]

KISS AND MAKE-UP (Paramount, 1934), directed by Harlan Thompson, gives promise as being some sort of domestic comedy about troubled marriage, but in fact is a very silly, virtually plot less comedy dealing with cosmetics. Starring Cary Grant, the story is set in Paris, France, where he plays Maurice LaMarr, a doctor in charge of a modernistic beauty salon in which women come to be made beautiful and glamorous. He is loved by Annie Hensen (Helen Mack), his loyal secretary, however, after encountering Eve (Genevieve Tobin), the wife of Marcel Caron (Edward Everett Horton), whom he has made more beautiful than the rest, he falls madly in love with her. After Marcel divorces his Eve, it leaves her free to marry Maurice, who soon realizes his mistake after he finds that she isn't really beautiful after all. During their honeymoon after Maurice sings a song looking towards the waves at the beach, Eve approaches him in saying, "Kiss me." Getting a full view of a face full of cosmetics, he replies in a frightful way, "No, NO!" As for Annie, who feels she has lost the man she loves, decides to run off and marry Marcel.

With Grant in the role that appears to be Maurice Chevalier influenced, the film's introductory opening goes at great lengths in not only showcasing the facial clips of the major lead actors and their character roles, but a list of young starlets billed as "The Wampas Baby Stars of 1934" including some now obscure names as Lucille Lund, Jacqueline Wells (both of Universal's "The Black Cat" fame); Jean Gale, Hazel Hayes, Gigi Parrish, and much more. Look fast for future film star Ann Sheridan as one of the models who asks, "Doctor, what is that terrible noise?" in regards to some hammering. The supporting actors who partake in the story are Mona Maris as Countess Rita; Lucien Littlefield as Max Pascal; Toby Wing as Consuelo Claghorne; and Rafael Storm as Rolando.

A Paramount gag comedy that makes little sense, and getting plenty of laughs, includes several key elements where a woman customer comes to the shop to be made beautiful only to come out completely bald; and a chase climax, reminiscent to Laurel and Hardy's COUNTY HOSPITAL (1932), having Grant, becoming dizzy and confused while under either, going on a merry mad chase after Annie and Marcel in a taxi down a very crowded street.

Aside from comedy, which this movie has plenty to offer, contains two songs, the campy "Cornbeaf and Cabbage - I Love You" (sung by Helen Mack and Edward Everett Horton) and "Love Divided By Two" (sung twice by Cary Grant), by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin, the latter used frequently through underscoring. In spite of Grant's reputation as a debonair leading man of screwball comedies, and a fine actor when it comes to heavy dramatics, he demonstrates how well he can sing, and how sparingly he's done so in his long career. Genevieve Tobin, on loan from Warner Brothers, is showcased in the usual manner as a free-spirited woman far from being loyal to the men who love her; Edward Everett Horton, with curly hair and red lips, as the jealous ex-husband to be; and Helen Mack (best known for her performance in RKO's THE SON OF KONG, 1933) satisfactory as the good but sensible girl. Grant and Mack would share another movie, the better known comedy of HIS GIRL Friday (Columbia, 1940), with Grant and Rosalind Russell in the leads, and Miss Mack in a smaller but notable performance.

KISS AND MAKE UP is harmless fun, enjoyable by those who appreciate this sort of material where writers tend to throw in anything to stretch out the story to feature length 70 minutes. Interestingly, of all the movies from the Paramount library that were broadcast on New York City's WPIX, Channel 11 (1965-1974), KISS AND MAKE-UP survived the longest, making its final air date on that station in mid 1975 before drifting to obscurity.

KISS AND MAKE UP may not be top-of-the-line Cary Grant, but no disaster by any means either. It's a sort of offbeat film Grant might have looked back and asking himself, "Did I really do this?" Distributed to DVD in 2006, on the double-bill with another Grant comedy, THIRTY DAY PRINCESS (1934), KISS AND MAKE-UP is a worthy re-discovery. (***)

early Grant, before he had the clout to choose his scripts

[blanche-2 · 5/10 · 31 December 2011]

Cary Grant, Genevieve Tobin, Helen Mack, and Edward Everett Horton star in "Kiss and Make Up," a 1934 film. Grant plays a popular plastic surgeon, Dr. Maurice Lamar (the film takes place in France). He falls for one of his makeovers (Tobin) who leaves her husband (Horton) and marries Lamar. Despite her looks, Lamar soon realizes he has created a monster. Meanwhile, Lamar's secretary Anne is in love with him and becomes increasingly unhappy as he seems to need her constantly but takes her for granted. Can you guess what happens? This actually is a musical with three songs, and Grant does his own singing. He must have - no one could have dubbed his awful tremolo. Other than that, he actually had a pleasant singing voice.

A very slight comedy, and I was surprised to read that Carole Lombard was supposed to play the role of the secretary but turned it down. Good move. And that casting wouldn't have worked. Lombard was certainly too beautiful to have been ignored by Lamar. Mack was pretty without being an absolute knockout. Genevieve Tobin does a good job as the annoying Eve, and Horton is funny as her husband, who wants his wife's old looks and personality back.

This film was really beneath Grant but he was too new to turn it down. He is perfect for the role of a handsome, dapper womanizer and is very good.

See it for the young Grant, but don't expect too much.

Savage farcical sarcastic treatment of women's obsession with trying to enhance or maintain their looks

[estherwalker-34710 · 9/10 · 26 March 2023]

In the much later film "To Die For", starring Nicole Kidman, sarcasm and irony is heaped upon the obsession of some to be a media celebrity: in Nicole's case, to be a TV personality or movie star. Similarly, here, sarcasm and irony is heaped upon most women's never-ending insecurity over their perceived all-important looks. Even naturally good-looking women often seek to somehow correct real or imagined small flaws in their face or whole bodies. One such woman is Eve Caron(Genevieve Tobin). Cary Grant, as Dr. Lamar, runs a cosmetic surgery and fitness center in Paris. Although married, Eve keeps returning to the clinic for yet more treatments, partly because she's obsessed with Cary. Finally, he declares that she is his perfect creation, and bids her farewell. But, she's determined to marry him, after her husband, Marcel(E. E. Horton) divorces her for being too full of herself. He complains that he liked her previous self, not her present obsession on maintaining her enhanced looks. Now, every man will want to make love to her.

Well, the divorce happens, and despite Marcel's warnings, Cary is puddy in Eve's arms. Sure enough, their wedding night and whole honeymoon is a disaster! Eve refuses to accompany Cary in an ocean swim, because he had taught her than salt water ruins your looks. She ruins Cary's chance to be named the president of the cosmetic surgeon's society at a banquet, because she took hours to get herself ready, so that the banquet was over by the time they sauntered in. When it was time to consumate their wedding, Eve appears with her face smeared with cleansing cream, her hands covered with long gloves, and her head covered with a net. Cary is so repelled, he says goodbye. It's taken that he divorces her.

Meanwhile, Cary's faithful, but non-glamorous, secretary, Annie((Helen Mack) has had a crush on him for years. But he treats her like a kid sister. Finally, he invites her to spend an evening in his apartment, supposedly to work on a book he's writing. But, he makes several moves to suggest he actually has romance on his mind, including serenading her with "Love Divided by Two". But, then suddenly switches to talking about working on the book. How cruel! She's humiliated, and storms out, crying. During Cary's 'honeymoon', she establishes a romance with Marcel, whom she declares is lacking in excess vanity, and has curly hair, she likes to run her fingers through. She quits her job with Cary. Consequently, when Cary returns to his clinic, he finds that all is not well. For one thing, the Maharajah's harem of previously mostly plump middle-aged-looking women have been transformed into sleek beautiful young things, and have decided to abandon the middle-aged Maharajah for anticipated handsome young men. Annie announces she is going to marry Marcel, while Cary blurts out that, now, he loves her. "Sorry, too late, Buster". But, before she has a chance to tie the knot, she discovers that Marcel's 'naturally' curly hair is a toupee! Yes, he also has vanity about his looks, just as Cary has vanity about his skill in making women more beautiful. But, Cary has renounced his profession, realizing it's down side. He has lost his excess vanity, Hence, Annie is OK to forget his past ignoring of her, and gives him a passionate kiss to end the film.

The film mixes various types of humor: sophisticated farce, low farce, satire, irony, screwball romance, and, at the end, good old Mack Sennett-style slapstick, in a wild car chase, which was a great way to finish the film! In all, I think this is my favorite Cary Grant film! It also includes the 1934 Wampas baby stars, who make up the staff at Cary's clinic, among other things. Besides the two renditions of "Love, Divided by Two", Marcel and Annie sing the novelty song "Corned Beef and Cabbage", which is the humble fare that Annie ordered for them to eat. Funny, it reminds me of the novelty song "I Love Corny Music", in ""Broadway Melody".

In the 1959 musical "Li'l Abner", the opposite sarcasm is included: The boyfriends take Mammy's magical Yokumberry Tonic, which immediately makes them into self-absorbed statuesque musclemen. But, they've lost all interest in romance. Thus, their girlfriends want them back the way they were.

Presently, you can find this film in the Cary Grant Screen Legend Collection.

An over-obsession with beauty takes a cold creamy curve.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 10 October 2013]

What starts off as a feature variation on the Eddie Cantor song Keep Young and Beautiful from Roman Scandals quickly turns into My Baby Just Cares For Me as beauty doctor Cary Grant finds out when he breaks up the marriage of client Genevieve Tobin, marries her and learns that life with a glamour girl ain't always so glamorous. Edward Everett Horton is her ex who takes up with Grant's jilted secretary Helen Mack who loved him from afar. Pre-code in every shape and form, this features some deliciously raunchy dialog and plenty of innuendo.

At first, you think that the movie is going to be a plug for Max Factor, but then it suddenly switches to an obvious crack at the obsession with beauty and the genuine ridiculousness of the industry that still obsesses today. Ugly old women yearn to look decades younger, those still young prove themselves to be shamefully materialistic and foolish. Not much has changed in 80 years! Grant gets to sing a bit and Tobin spoofs the ridiculousness of vanity with delightful tongue in cheek. Horton as usual is a delightfully funny pompous fool. Mack is noble but nobody's fool yet her pairing with Horton is never convincing. If you pick up on the parody, you'll see past the shallowness and find a handsome romantic comedy with plenty to enjoy.

Keep Young And Beautiful

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 4 September 2010]

A year before Kiss And Make Up came out from Paramount, Sam Goldwyn produced Roman Scandals for Eddie Cantor in which Cantor sang the song Keep Young And Beautiful. While watching this film, it occurred to me that rather than any of the songs that Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger wrote for this film, Keep Young And Beautiful could have served better as the theme for Kiss And Make Up.

Not only that Eddie Cantor should have played the part that Cary Grant did in this film. A few more sight gags and the kind of humor that Cantor did would have served this film better.

With only a few establishing shots to make us believe this is Paris in the film, Cary Grant plays a noted French plastic surgeon who has become a celebrity of sorts with his success rate in turning out women who rate being called a 10. He guarantees doubling their rating value. One woman, Genevieve Tobin is pleased with his work, but her husband Edward Everett Horton is not. Finally Cary has a secretary in his office played by Helen Mack who sees him as a human being and not a celebrity beauty queen maker.

When MGM's compilation film That's Entertainment was released audiences were treated to a clip from Suzy which came out two years later than Kiss And Make Up and had Cary Grant singing Did I Remember. He sings here some songs that surely have been served better had they been done by Paramount's singing star Bing Crosby. In Suzy Grant did the number for laughs, here someone thought maybe he could be a musical star. Big mistake. In fact Edward Everett Horton and Helen Mack singing an ode to that St. Patrick's Day delicacy Corned Beef And Cabbage was the musical highlight.

Not the best Cary Grant film though the wild taxi chase in the end does liven the film up somewhat.

Tiresome then unfunny then annoying

[1930s_Time_Machine · 2/10 · 28 January 2024]

Harlan Thompson only directed two films and if you watch this, you'll understand why. Having directed AND written this, nobody else can be blamed for its awfulness. I don't think I've ever endured such a totally unfunny comedy for years. How could something as disappointing as this come from the same studio which launched The Marx Brothers!

Celebrity plastic surgeon - and at this time in his career, plastic actor Cary Grant creates the ideal most beautiful woman in the world. He then falls in love with his Frankenstein monster only to discover that she is as artificial as his own superficial personality. Had this been written better, it could have been quite a witty critique of the cynical beauty industry. A clever script could have made this a satirical indictment on how we judge people solely on their looks. Annoyingly though, none of this potential is realised because it's definitely not well written. If there is any moral in this then it's that looks are more important than personality!

One aspect of pre-code cinema this film exploits to the full is having sexy young ladies gratuitously in just their underwear. As my closing paragraph below reveals, that's a quality of these films which I love and admit to being a huge fan of but the way it's used in this, along with its sexist narrative feels a little distasteful.

I feel genuinely annoyed that so much talent was wasted in such drivel. Did the big wigs at Paramount actually think that this was entertainment? Apart from one scene where the wonders of corned beef are exhorted in song including the line: Oh do you're so plebeian, you're fit for a Quee-an, it is NOT funny. For a comedy to work the characters have to be at least half-believable but these are less than one dimensional and the direction is so irregular that in its last ten minutes, as if realising that the previous hour didn't work it suddenly becomes a third rate Keystone Cops comedy.

Cary Grant displays none of that comic genius he showed in his later films. He was in two of the funniest films ever: BRINGING UP BABY and ARSENIC AND OLD LACE but in this he's atrocious. I feel even more sorry for Genevieve Tobin who is as amusing as she can be working with such rubbish material. She was a superb comedy actress and could, if allowed and given a proper character, be very funny. In this she plays 'the perfect beauty' a role someone as beautiful as she indeed was, was perfect for. It's such a wasted opportunity.

The person I blame however for making me suffer this is Toby Wing. She, if you don't know was the stunning 'extra' who graced a handful of pictures in the 30s by spicing them up with one or maybe two minutes of incendiary sexiness. In this, she has a rare speaking part and appears in the film's first five minutes. She walks into Cary Grant's office whereupon he says: 'Take your clothes off please.' An absolutely understandable reaction to meeting her I think. But baiting us with her sex appeal is a dirty, mean trick from Paramount if you ask me!

Extremely Weird and Uneven

[Michael_Elliott · 15 March 2017]

Kiss and Make-Up (1934)

** (out of 4)

Maurice Lamar (Cary Grant) is a famous plastic surgeon living in Paris where he works on making women beautiful all day long. His secretary Anne (Helen Mack) is secretly in love with him but the doctor decides to head off with the married Eve (Genevieve Tobin) who he feels is his masterpiece work. Eve's husband Marcel (Edward Everett Horton) ends up striking up a relationship with Anne and soon all four are on a crash course.

KISS AND MAKE-UP is without question one of the strangest films from this era of Hollywood. It got into theaters before the Hayes Office started to come down on sexuality and the Pre-Code nature of the film is something that would probably attract people to it. I will admit that the free sexuality running through the first half of the picture was quite good and seeing Grant kiss a married woman isn't something that too many movies did back in the day.

With that said, this is without a doubt a pretty bad movie on many levels. It remains slightly entertaining simply because of how weird the thing is. The first twenty-five minutes basically take place in the plastic surgeon office where we see several of the beautiful women as well as some of the ugly ones hoping to look better. Seeing Grant flirt and talk his way through the people was mildly entertaining but there's so much here that happens for no apparent reason including a meeting with an old college friend that never pays off. The blatant sexuality is a plus but things just get stranger.

From here we get the weird love story with the two couples basically trading off partners for whatever reason. None of these segment, clocking in around thirty-minutes total, adds up to anything entertaining and in fact it's just downright boring. Even worse if the final five-minutes where it seems director Harlan Thompson was trying to pay homage to the Keystone Kops and it just doesn't work. To date this here was Grant's biggest role and he's fun to watch but there's no question that there's not much else. Mack and Tobin are decent in their roles but but characters are poorly written.

KISS AND MAKE-UP is weird enough to where it's worth watching if you're a film buff but there's no doubt that it was Grant's worst picture up to this point in his career. With that said, he does sing a song!

Not that bad until the truly wretched finale

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 31 January 2009]

Because KISS AND MAKE-UP was made very early in his career, I guess I can understand why Cary Grant could make such a bad film. But make no mistakes--this is a bad film. While the first 90% isn't great, the finale is truly one of the most wretched scenes in Grant's wonderful career.

The film has very unusual casting because Cary is cast as a plastic surgeon and beauty guru of sorts. He is so famous that his practice is making him a fortune, he has a radio show and women adore him. Through all this, he has a secretary who adores him. It's incredibly obvious to the audience and, of course, Cary can't see this--a movie cliché indeed. This potential romance with his nice secretary is nixed when a vain society lady falls for Cary. This lady is considered the ideal beauty and Cary is proud of his creation--the only trouble is that she's still married to Edward Everett Horton. though he is only too happy to give divorce her. Cary finds out why, as his new wife spends every second of the day working on her beauty--taking 4 and a half hours to dress for a dinner, eating lettuce and lean ham, refusing to go into the sun or swim. She's as much fun as an enema and the marriage fizzles almost immediately. At this point, Cary FINALLY realizes that his secretary is the woman for him---but she's about to marry Horton. So in a "madcap" finale, he chases her in a cab through the streets of Paris.

As for the finale, it truly stinks. It looks more like a chase scene from a 3 Stooges short--one of their poorer ones at that!! From the film to go from subtle comedy and romance to slapstick was abrupt and unnecessary. In fact, nothing about this ending worked at all and made me cringe. You'll just have to see it for yourself to understand how a sub-par Grant film became one of his worst due to this ending.

By the way, if you care, the worst film Cary Grant made during his great career was ONCE UPON A TIME--a film he made during the height of his fame. It's a "heart-warming" story of a cute little kid with a dancing caterpillar--and Cary is the promoter who wants to make them famous. It's so bad that it's actually worth seeing--just to see how bad it is!

Too stupid for words

[ilprofessore-1 · 5/10 · 29 August 2019]

Silly? No, stupid. An unfunny, terribly forced attempt at sophisticated comedy so desperate for laughs that it ends with a badly staged comic car chase that went out of style with Max Sennett. Such skilled farceurs as Cary Grant, Genevieve Tobin, and Edward Everett Horton do their best with the feeble dialogue, second-rate gags, and improbable plotting. Only worth watching to hear Grant sing a pleasant Ralph Rainger song decently, see the gorgeous Toby Wing take off some of her clothes, or listen to the Cuban actor Rafael Storm ham it up as an angry Latin lover. This Paramount picture was personally produced by B.P. Schulberg, father of screenwriter Budd, head of the studio in 1934 who was fired that year. Watching this tasteless humorless picture will show you why.

Plastic surgery and makeup can't save this film

[SimonJack · 5/10 · 7 March 2017]

In just two years, and with more than a dozen films behind him, Cary Grant was a hit and commanded star status and leads in most of his films. While many of his movies were very good, a few weren't much better than run-of-the mill. "Kiss and Make-Up" is one of those. The title of this movie is a play on words – make-up then being used to refer to women's makeup and cosmetics. Grant is a doctor in this film – a plastic surgeon living in Paris who has built his particular calling into a beauty empire. He will do the usual face-lifting and other surgeries, but much of his professional guidance is in diet, exercise, the use of special beauty products and all sorts of pampering practices for the body. It's a real body-worship plot in his beauty salon.

But after he "creates" the perfect woman and she leaves her husband for him, he finds the tables turned. Grant plays Dr. Maurice Lamar who gets a dose of his own medicine. The perfect beauty is Genevieve Tobin as Eve Caron. The husband who liked his wife the way she was before and winds up divorced from here is Marcel Caron, played by Edward Everett Horton. Another principal character is Lamar's secretary-manager, Anne, played by Helen Mack.

Lamar eventually comes to his senses and is saved from the hedonistic lifestyle of body-worship. The movie has a car chase and Cary Grant sings. He could carry a tune, but nothing like the noted singing stars. He also plays the piano – a talent he used some in later films and frequently in his personal life. Marcel and Anne have the only good song in the film – they both love their "Corn Beef and Cabbage."

With all of the attention to physical beauty and the number of beauties in the salon, this film can soon begin to wear on one. The plot is thin and shallow. It's probably only of interest to die-hard Cary Grant fans.

Silly comedy attempts serious overtones with mixed results

[csteidler · 5/10 · 9 March 2018]

Cary Grant is the famous Dr. Lamar, proprietor and doctor at a popular and very lucrative beauty clinic in Paris. The business is a huge success: Grant beautifies his patients with everything from diet and exercise advice to plastic surgery. He also sells face cream on the radio.

A stylish opening sequence shows Grant entering his clinic and walking through to his office to great acclaim: everyone in the place is beautiful, everyone is smiling, and they are all delighted to see Dr. Lamar. He has a great gig. However....

Personal secretary Helen Mack wishes that Grant would wake up and realize that all the women patients falling in love with him don't really know him. "It isn't you they fall for," she tells him. "It's just the trimmings."

Expressing even stronger disapproval is Edward Everett Horton, a patient's husband who barges in and demands that Grant stop treating his wife-he likes her the way she is and doesn't want her beautified.

Genevieve Tobin, the wife, is an extremely enthusiastic patient. When Grant finishes her treatments, he declares that she is "perfect," his greatest creation. When he further declares that he is done with her, however, Tobin notes, "He only thinks he is."

From here the plot runs into a confusion of Tobin leaving Horton for Grant, while Mack does some hand-wringing and wishes that Grant would come to his senses and put his considerable skills to a more noble use. It's entertaining enough, though not really believable for a minute. Grant and Tobin do indeed look good, despite the rather obnoxious characters they play. And Helen Mack probably comes across best--at least, she plays the most appealing role.

Grant sings a nice song, and appears actually to be playing the piano. Overall, it's more a curiosity than a film that works as a moral tale or even a light romance...however, if you want to see what a clinic staffed by the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1934 would look like, here's your chance.

Here comes Cary

[st-shot · 4/10 · 24 March 2022]

In one of his earliest leads Cary Grant is marketed the way female eye candy was in the day as a dashing and suave plastic surgeon in Kiss and Make-Up. An insipid and lame comedy musical with Wampas babies running all over the set, Cary even gets to warble a tune a couple of times though Helen Mack and Edward Evrett Horton one up him with a rendition of a simple ditty entitled "Corn beef and Cabbage." Whether modeling tuxes or robes Grant is displayed in a way to slay women both on and off the screen with little help from the lifeless script and near non-existent plot. "Kiss" does make some pointed jabs about cosmetic surgery and the narcissism driving it but tries to remain light, resulting in lame.

The slapstick finale is hackneyed and desperate but not before showing more than its fair share of close-ups and profiles of an actor about to become an icon and legend of Hollywood film over the next 30 years.

Sucks to be Bald

[view_and_review · 4/10 · 23 April 2024]

"Kiss and Make Up" had one chance and one chance only for it to be of any value: the other guy had to get the girl. The main guy was Dr. Maurice Lamar (Cary Grant). The other guy was Marcel Caron (Edward Everett Horton). The girl was Annie (Helen Mack).

Dr. Maurice Lamar (Cary Grant) was a handsome plastic surgeon that owned and operated Dr. Lamar's Temple of Beauty in Paris, France. He had women all over the world heeding his advice. He did a daily broadcast telling women what they could do to look more beautiful. Inuits in the frozen tundra and tribal African women in the plains of Africa were donning his face cream.

Unbeknownst to him, yet extremely predictably, his secretary Annie (Helen Mack) was in love with him. She was hypocritically in love with the doctor. She tried to make us believe that all the other women were in love with the beauty expert while she was in love with the man. That was impossible when he was nothing more than a shallow beauty expert twenty-four hours a day. The truth: she was in love with the same guy all the other women were in love with.

Dr. Maurice's masterpiece, Eve Caron (Genevieve Tobin), was infatuated with him. She was willing to cheat on her husband, Marcel Caron (Edward Everett Horton), with the doctor. Marcel didn't like the new Eve and as a result he left her. Dr. Maurice loved the new Eve, so he married her.

What Dr. Maurice loved in Eve was her newfound beauty--the beauty he bestowed upon her with surgery, ointments, creams, and whatever else. Maurice married Eve then divorced her in short order. He found that her beauty wasn't to be enjoyed except by the eyes. She spent so much time trying to remain beautiful that Maurice couldn't enjoy any part of her; even on their honeymoon.

Had her beauty been something that he could enjoy, then he would've remained married to her even though she was a vapid woman.

Left in the cold was plain ol' Annie until she met Marcel (Eve's ex-husband). Marcel loved natural beauty. He loved Annie just the way she was, and Annie at least liked Marcel for his appreciation of her natural beauty. They were all set to get married until Annie saw that Marcel wore a toupee. With that, she left Marcel and proclaimed her love for Dr. Maurice who was now single after leaving the vain monster he'd married.

Recap:

Marcel (Horton) divorced Eve (Tobin). Maurice (Grant) married Eve. Marcel hooked up with Annie (Mack). Maurice divorced Eve. Annie left Marcel right before their wedding to be with Maurice.

What would have been better is if Annie married Marcel. No, he wasn't the looker that Dr. Maurice was, but he also wasn't the shallow narcissist he was either. Sure, Dr. Maurice supposedly saw the error of his ways after marrying Eve, but hadn't Annie suffered enough watching Dr. Maurice slay one woman after the other? It was like she was begging to be one of his conquests as well.

The handsome protagonist getting the plain and principled girl is not always the best ending, and I don't think it was here either. In the end it was beauty that mattered most. Marcel, with his average looks and heartfelt sincerity couldn't compete with the Adonis that was Dr. Maurice. The fact that baldness was Marcel's undoing sends a powerful message. Good thing I got married when I did or else I may have also been single the rest of my life.

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