was this much more common in the 40s and 50s. I know it still happens now a days but it seemed way more obvious in these movies. They made it seem like Cary Grant and Grace Kelly were a suitable age for each other, which is funny.
shareYou don't think Grace Kelly would find Cary Grant attractive and vice versa? Cary is the right age for this role. He was about 50 when this was filmed and he's playing a character who has been retired from being a cat burglar for 15 years according to the dialogue in the film. So the character pretty much has to be in his 40's.
Grace's mother makes it clear that she prefers Cary as a match for her daughter. to the empty headed young men that Grace has been dating in America. So all in all, you may think it funny, but it's not as unusual as you apparently think.
What could Hollywood do with so many aging Lotharios? Have them retired? Yes, many films are awkward because the ages are skewed (in High Society, Crosby is much too old for Miss Kelly--she fit Sinatra better) . . . in this film, Grant and Grace are just skating by . . . due to Miss Kelly's maturity . . .
shareI read somewhere in this board that Cary was a playing a 35 year old or something around that age. If I am wrong then my bad.
I think it is certainly plausible that they would find each attractive. I dont think much of age difference between couple.
My question was more regarding the societal views at that time. Even If Cary Grant is playing someone in his 40s and Grace Kelly was 26 (I don't think her character was much older) at this time. I would have thought that was a significant age difference. Thats why I found it odd that the mother would suggest them as couple, which is what led me to believe that Cary Grant was playing a much younger character.
Or was it just more acceptable for older men to date/marry much younger women at that time?
Or was it just more acceptable for older men to date/marry much younger women at that time?
My choice of words could have been better. It is acceptable but now when younger women marry older men, they are often viewed as trophy wives and gold diggers. The older men are often viewed as desperately trying to hold onto their youth. I find no problem with it but these are some of the perceptions in society now. However this movie makes me believe it wasn't always like this.
shareI don't think there's been a huge shift in perception over the last fifty or sixty years. Trophy wives and gold diggers are not new concepts. See for example the movie Gold Diggers of 1933. (Even in that movie, though, Joan Blondell and Aline McMahon appear to motivated by genuine affection for the richer men they snag (after they've taken their money)).
But in To Catch a Thief, Grace Kelly would be neither a gold digger nor a trophy wife. She is already wealthy, perhaps wealthier than Cary's character. She seems to be motivated by Cary's physical appeal, personality and perhaps her romantic ideas about him as a cat burglar.
There are older men/younger women relationships in all eras of the movies - look at Magic in the Moonlight this year.
I offer up this bit of dialog from South Pacific:
"Lt. Cable: [Cable has been told that Nellie is in love with Emile] That's hard to believe, sir; they tell me he's a middle-aged man.
Capt. George Brackett: [fuming] Cable, it is a common mistake for boys of your age and athletic ability to underestimate men who have reached their maturity. Young women frequently find older men attractive, strange as it may seem. I myself am over fifty. I am a bachelor. And Cable, I do not, by any means, consider myself th-r-rough."
It's box office . . . if a guy can still carry a film, a role, go for it . . . they'll try and get around any age differences . . . which abound in '50s films . . . all those male stars from the 30s and 40s were all getting older, though they still had a powerful screen persona . . .
shareDo you realize in 10 years he would be a senior citizen whereas she would still be a young woman in her 30s? If they had children, she would be the one more physically active in rearing the children whereas he would need either a cane or a wheel chair and a nurse to boot.
The character is meant to be younger hence why the mother says what she says.
Cary Grant died 30 years after this movie came out. He most certainly didn't need a cane or wheelchair ten years afterward.
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he is probsbly meant to be younger in the film than his actual age. But in real life he remained fit for another thirty years after making this film, until his death. And in fact he outlived Grace kelly by four years.
share"he would need either a cane or a wheel chair and a nurse to boot."
Huh? When he's around sixty? I'm sixty-six and I'll run you a race any day, young 'un.
Boy, you really caught a lot of grief on this one, mostly from people with their own personal feelings and baggage. Fact is, you are right in that this would never fly in today's Hollywood, and Robie would have been played by a guy in his late 20s or early 30s. But, back then, the world was run by older people (men), and that didn't change until, when, the 1960s?
shareI think one thing to remember is that even accounting for older men/younger women being "acceptable" in the fifties(Grace Kelly opposite Gable, Cooper, Stewart and Grant) and in recent years(Sean Connery and Michael Douglas with much younger romantic co-stars)...
..in these 50's movies, the 50-something men were usually PLAYING characters meant to be no older than FORTY.
It was sort of a "set age limit" for characters:
Leading men: in their 30s, no older than 40.
Leading women: in their 20's, no older than 25.
CHARACTERS in these movies who were meant to BE over 50 were cast with grandfatherly and grandmotherly actors.
It was all a fantasy with disbelief suspended accordingly.
The character in the book on which the movie was based was 35 years old. I don't think anyone involved with the movie claimed that the character as played by Grant was 35 years old. In fact, as someone else noted here, mention is made in the movie that Robie has been retired from burglering for 15 years, which would necessarily make his character older than 35. It's possible that this dialogue was added to make it clear that Robie in the movie is older than the Robie of the novel.
shareI think he was 35 in the script.
shareCome on, which movie did you just watch?
Cary Grant is doubtlessly close to fifty in this movie and Grace is made to look like she could be his daughter, well below 30. But maybe that's what you call 'suitable for each other? Why not!?
I really don't get the stigma against older men pursuing younger woman, especially if the younger women is of age... and especially when the man has honorable intentions, like spending what's left his life with her and leaving her a fortune when he dies.
shareIf it is too blatant . . . the guy could come across as a "dirty ole man" or a creep. . . which of course one would try and avoid (unless that is the film's intent) . . . Hitchcock's Vertigo is one example . . .
shareWhat about the other way around? Or is it only to a man's advantage?
sharei agree he is too old for Grace Kelly really, but he is fit for his age and still goodlooking, so it isn't too bad a pairing in my opinion. I mean, it isn't impossible to imagine her being attracted to him. many women do marry older men after all. I know that Grant himself was sensitive to the age gap between him and the heroines in his later films, when he made Charade with Audrey Hepburn, he insisted that the emphasis in the film should be on her pursuing him, so that he didn't look like a dirty old man.
shareFit? He looks like a guy in his 60s! Skinny, sunken chest, little arms, leathery skin, stooped shoulders. He was only 50! Pretty shocking how much better fifty year olds today look!
It did look like a dirty old man and his daughter.
That being said, love the look of this movie!
I think he looks very good, nothing wrong with his arms or his chest that I can see. Nothing wrong with his skin either. He certainly never had any trouble attracting younger women.
shareGrant certainly was not the right age for Kelly.
Its that man again!!
older men/you ger women pairings continue to be common in films. Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones for instance, and then there aws Six days, Seven Nights, with Harrison Ford and some skinny young bird, can't remember her name. Young women are quite often attracted to older men.
shareWith movies what do you do with aging matinée idols? An aging male star can get a career boost by appearing with a hot current female star (or up-and-coming) who's years younger. Does it impair the story? I think it can, it becomes too lopsided, unreal, the girl should go and find a guy her own age . . . I remember Daddy Long Legs and thought it was too unbelievable, Leslie Caron was far too young for Astaire . . . I agree that John Robie is too old for her, but he's just skating by, the pairing is still a good one . . .
shareI agree about Daddy long Legs - Astaire was too old. in the book, Jervis is fourteen years older than judy, not 32 years! i think cary grant could get away with it better than most older film stars becAuse he looked very good for his age - he could knock a decade off quite believably.
shareYes, he seemed to get away with it much better than most others . . . this age incompatibility can distract from a good story, or out right ruin a film . . . one thing about Barefoot Contessa was at least in that film Bogart wasn't Ava's boyfriend, only a sort of mentor . . . wise . . . other films border on the unbelievable, or too lopsided . . . one reason I think Hitchcock's 39 Steps is so great is that Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll are age compatible--their most believable as a young couple--helping to make the movie a delight!
shareyes, it is better when they are near in age. In the 30s and 40s all the male stars were playing opposite women close to their own ages. the. In the 50s the men were playing opposite much younger women, while the female stars of the 30s and 40s, those who were still working, were being cast opposite lesser actors on the whole.
shareIt seems that when there is age compatibility the film has more vigor . . . more life to it, and the audience engages better . . . if there is an age gap, and a big one, the story suffers . . . In High Society Bing is much to old for Grace . . . though Sinatra gives the film a lift . . .
shareyes, it is better when they are closer in age i agree. But that's hollywood. I remember reading. A quote by Lilian Gish I think it was, that lionel BArrymore had played her grandfather in one film, then later he played her father in another film, and then in their final film together he was her husband "if he'd lived longer I would have played his mother, that's the way it is in hollywood, the men get younger and the women get older".
shareMiss Gish spoke truth . . . yes, that age differential can drag a film . . . even make a story uncomfortable . . . if you watch Long Hot Summer both Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward bring zest to their respective roles . . . but, let's get real: Clark Gable and Sophia Loren, Gary Cooper with the lovely Julie London?--way off base, phony . . . not believable at all . . . yet, they were getting away with it back in the day . . .
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I usually agree with you about the age difference being glaring and discordant in movies, and yet there are some actors who really could make it work. I never notice the age difference with Cary Grant. Ever. Not in To Catch a Thief or in Charade with Audrey Hepburn. Or if I do I just don't care because it's believable.
Some actors can age and still hold onto that sexy quality where it just doesn't matter how old they are. To me, Cary Grant was one of the rare few. Helen Mirren another. I want to be Helen Mirren when I'm old. Heh.
Gary Cooper is not. I saw him with Hepburn in "Love in the Afternoon," and I thought it was gross. She plays the young daughter of a private detective who is fascinated by Cooper's (badly) aging roué. I guess he looked the part anyway. I just didn't feel the attraction between the characters and couldn't figure out why she was so fascinated by him.
I don't feel that way at all about her character's relationship with Cary Grant's in "Charade." They make it work. There's an attraction and the men are virile enough that it works for me.
Somebody mentioned Sean Connery. He too would be one of the rare few. Harrison Ford made it work in Six Days, Seven Nights, but I'm not so sure now. Heh. I'd have to see.
It really all boils down to chemistry, I guess.
I'm cool, you're cool, we're cool, thank you, good night!-My Science Project
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I knew Grant was bothered by the age difference in Charade, but I really didn't notice it. Hepburn always seemed mature to me. I don't think she was too girlish.
I'm cool, you're cool, we're cool, thank you, good night!-My Science Project
I can't help thinking of Audrey Hepburn's portrayal on Psychobi!!!es. Very funny and just nails what I don't like about her. Overly cute and quirky.
shareHow are they not suitable? I can see how Grace could be attracted to older men. I have been. Some older men are attractive.
shareJessie Royce Landis who was only eight years older than Cary Grant played Grace Kelly's mother in " To Catch A Thief" and four years later played Cary Grant's mother in "North By Northwest". As good looking as Cary Grant was, his age caught up with him in the 50's and 60's and it was obvious he couldn't play 35 to 39 forever.
shareMaybe had he stayed out of the sun more. Tans lay seeds for bad skin, people!
What do you all think about gay relationships? 50yo woman with a 25yo woman? 50yo man with a 25yo man? Does that alter your perceptions of older/younger romances or confirm it?