Lost Girls talk about "Archie" (Spoilers)

[servalan]

Of course we don't know exactly what went on in Cary Grant's mind, and it will always be speculation, informed to a greater or lesser degree by what other people saw in him.

But I am interested that Dyan Cannon, although so badly hurt by her husband when she was a young woman, is nowadays so forgiving of him. It seems that she saw and can now understand something of how Archie's behaviour was due to his background. She has never, in any of the interviews about the show that I have watched, condemned him or described him as a monster or anything really negative. She is careful to distinguish her criticism of his behaviour from criticism of him as a person.

When she first married him, she obviously loved him, she has said so. It's a trope that once the ring is on the finger, a husband's behaviour towards his wife sometimes becomes different - Cary Grant is not the only man to do this. I also interpret some of his behaviour as due to what he expected an ideal mother to be, and Dyan wanting to leave her new baby with others did not fit this image.

[thunder]

I must say she (Dyan Cannon) comes off as a very generous and understanding person in the interviews. Can't imagine what she's had to do to build herself back up again.

I also want to say, my post was about the story told in the series, I really didn't mean to comment or judge any of the people it's based on.

[Anniemouse]

Dyan does come across as a kind and understanding women. I was wondering about the sea change between Archie and Dyan were experiencing in the 1960's. As a young man (born 1904) married women were banned from many jobs let alone mothers while Dyan was seeing the world opening up before her. I wish the series was a little clearer on some matters. If you did not know that Cary and Sophia had been involved in a torrid affair, the pestering of her would be even more disconcerting.

I wonder if Archie / Cary's experiences as a gigilo having to entertain older wealthy women (whatever that entailed) also messed up his sense of sex and self. Like I stated he seemed to have had happier relations with non partners but the moment love / sex was involved he could not cope. I wonder if that also warped his vew of what a relationship was all about.

[Anniemouse]

By the way did anyone catch the Harry Potter referrence in episode 4?

[thunder]

When they were playing with the dolls?

"My name is Hermione..."

[Anniemouse]

I did giggle at that, as you could tell that was improv from Jason.

[Anniemouse]

Can I just say that I have seen Penny Serenade for the first time in decades and it still stands up to the great memories I had of it. Grant rightly got an Oscar nom and he is just brilliant. I think this is one of the only roles where he pushed his screen persona and he is often vulnerable in the role. I swear he was not acting the crying scenes. Knowing now what I know about his life; the pain was never far away from the surface and for a while in this movie we actually get a glimpse of it.

[Anniemouse]

Something else crossed my mind about the relationship of Cary and Dyan. It would not have helped that she seemed to have been the rebound after Sophia and as that seemed to have been such a major relationship in his life that cannot have helped either.

[Antoni Bandzior]

The thing with people with obsessions is, they jump smoothly from one object to another, and they seem to look like they've forgot the previous "object" in a second, when they find new "victim". They seem very deeply involved almost instantly.
Most of the time they're not seeing the real human, but their own image of them. We can see very similar patern here - he was trying to change her, so she would fit the image he wanted.

[thunder]

I read an interview with Sophia Loren about the Cary Grant affair. She was already involved with this older Italian millionaire film producer who was married. The she got involved with Cary Grant, and was wondering who she was going to go for. She was quite honest in the interview that she was looking for a father figure since she grew up without a father. In the end she went for the Italian, since she felt they shared a cultural background. I can imagine that it made an impression on Cary Grant to be turned down in favour of another man.

I was thinking as I watched the series that Dyan Cannon coming in after the Sophia Loren affair, that it made him even more controlling with her.