Dreamboat (1952) User Reviews

"Those pictures were designed to capitalize on the vicarious cravings of middle-aged glandular cases."

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 8 January 2015]

Former silent film star Gloria Marlowe (Ginger Rogers) is hosting a show on TV that features her old movies. This causes problems for her former costar, Thornton Sayre (Clifton Webb), now a respected college professor. Sayre, who was known as Bruce Blair during his acting days, sets out with his bookish daughter (Anne Francis) to stop the movies from being shown.

What a treat this is. One of those movies you never hear about but is just great fun. Clifton Webb is terrific, throwing out one pithy line after another. I'm kind of surprised Ginger did this part, given that it dates her in a way most actresses of the time wouldn't want any part of. Actually, it makes her seem older than her real age. Props to her for not caring. You sure as heck wouldn't have caught Joan Crawford admitting to being 40 -- even when she was 60! She looks amazing, though, and is very funny. It's one of her best post-1940s comedic roles. Anne Francis is cute as a button and holds her own quite well. Supporting cast includes a wonderful Elsa Lanchester and an early role for Jeffrey Hunter. The fake silent movies are hilarious. It's especially funny seeing Webb channel Douglas Fairbanks in one of his action scenes. It's an underrated gem of a comedy that provides some smart commentary on celebrity and satire on television ("The phenomenon of television -- it encourages people who dwell under the same roof to ignore each other completely"). Definitely a movie you should check out if you get the chance, especially if you're a fan of Clifton Webb or Ginger Rogers.

Movie Star On the Faculty

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 19 September 2005]

Imagine the surprise when the faculty and students of a small college discover that a prim and proper English professor was in fact a silent screen star. It's discovered when Clifton Webb's old co-star, Ginger Rogers is hosting a program showing some of their old films. The man she calls her Dreamboat.

I suppose it's hard to imagine for today's audience a television in its infancy. But in 1952 it still was and a good way to fill up a lot of programming time was to broadcast old films. Even the silent ones. In my youth WOR TV in New York City was an RKO station and had the entire RKO library available to it. In the infant days of that station their programming was mostly old films as I remember.

Anyway Clifton Webb is quite content to be out of the Hollywood scene and he's quite annoyed that his past has been resurrected. He and daughter Anne Francis have law suit on their minds.

It's a dated story, but the script is quite good with some nice witty lines for Webb and Rogers to toss back and forth at each other. Among the supporting cast, the biggest kudos should go to Elsa Lanchester the prim and proper college president who discovers she's got a genuine sex object on her faculty and wants to do something about it.

Wonderful

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 5 April 2009]

Clifton Webb is "Dreamboat," in this 1954 film. Webb plays a silent film star named Bruce Blair who is now a college professor under what one assumes is his real name, Thornton Sayre. All is well until his silent films begin to appear on that new popular medium, television, and hosted by his former co-star (Ginger Rogers). The college board calls for his resignation, so Sayre goes to New York with his brainy daughter (Anne Francis) to get an injunction to stop the televising of his old films.

Webb was an underrated actor who could do the acerbic queen beautifully, but one forgets he was also a gifted comedian and a moving dramatic actor - "The Man Who Never Was" and "Titanic" being two prime examples of his capabilities. He also was a trained opera singer, something the New York theater audiences, alas, only got to hear. In "Dreamboat," his silent film character is a cross between John Gilbert, Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Webb does a terrific job overplaying the silent film acting.

Ginger Rogers is wonderful as the glamorous, conniving ex-costar, Gloria Marlowe, but I have to agree with one comment, that the two stars had little chemistry. The role was originally offered to Marlene Dietrich - she and Webb might have been quite funny together.

Anne Francis is the plain Jane daughter in an early role, and Jeffrey Hunter is the gorgeous Bill Ainslee in an early role for him, a man assigned by his agency boss (Sam Levitt) to escort Francis around town. They make a great couple; both appeared in the 1965 programmer 'Brainstorm' to excellent effect. By that time, their studio days were over; Hunter's film career had disintegrated, and Francis would have her most of her career in television. They both still looked fabulous, though.

Very, very entertaining. Highly recommended.

Deft amusement

[mermatt · 19 November 1999]

Clifton Webb is in top form here as a college professor who starred in old silent films. His past resurfaces when the old movies are shown on TV and he becomes the "Dreamboat."

This is a deftly amusing film in which Hollywood is poking fun at the silliness of its arch-rival of the 1950s, TV. It also pokes fun at its own early days of silent melodrama.

The film is an enjoyable experience overall, but especially delicious is Webb as the prim professor who is also the soap-opera film star of old Hollywood.

Clifton Webb in a pretty smart comedy

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 25 December 2021]

Webb plays English literature professor Thornton Sayre. He is rather stodgy - like Clifton Webb's characters usually are - and so when the student body discovers that the professor played "Dreamboat" in a series of silent adventure films they are having a big laugh at his expense. This is a part of his past that was short lived and that nobody in his life even knew about. This fanfare would eventually fade away, except Sayre's costar in the Dreamboat films, Gloria Marlow (Ginger Rogers) is going to keep playing them on TV to promote her line of beauty products. This will keep Sayre in the spotlight as a joke indefinitely. The university board is considering firing him, but he asks for time to travel to New York and get an injunction to stop the airing of these films.

What follows is a fish out of water story. Sayre is in New York dealing with TV sponsors, executives, and even Gloria, none of whom are particularly honest in their dealings with him. Meanwhile, his daughter Carol (Ann Francis), who up to this point has been turning into a mini me of her dad and planning to become a professor of English literature herself, is finding her head turned by the New York nightlife.

It makes fun of the entertainment industry and in particular of television as it existed in 1952. In those days commercials really did go on for an entire minute and were often embedded in the TV show being aired such that you can't skip over them. I wonder if youtube came up with this idea from watching this film? But I digress.

The only thing I did not like is how Elsa Lanchester's character, the college president, continually throws her self at Sayre, enamored with his Dreamboat persona. Once would have been funny. As long as this goes on it is just cringeworthy.

Too young

[Midgegirl · 7/10 · 31 March 2021]

I loved this film, but I couldn't stop thinking what a shame it was that they hadn't got an actress the correct age for Rogers' role.

Women in Hollywood were damned either way: if they did play their age, they'd get "Oohh, hasn't she aged!" comments, which in turn fuelled writers creating very few middle-aged leading roles for them, or they'd get typecast in cameo role mothers/grannies etc and never get a leading role again; or if they did play the ageist game they became obsessed with either trying too hard to appear youthful, or just hid themselves away to protect their image/avoid the crap. And then writers made fun of them for it in films like Sunset Boulevard/Baby Jane/All About Eve etc. Strange how those writers never made fun of themselves for doing such a poor job of their craft that led to these women behaving like that. And some those writers were women themselves! But they too knew they had to play the game, or they'd be out of a job; and so it continued.

Even Marlene Dietrich turned down the role, despite being 12 years younger than Clifton Webb who clearly had no such qualms about playing a man in his 60s.

I can well imagine that many actresses then in their late 50s/early 60s would have felt it was somehow undignified, or illusion-shattering to play their age- which just goes to show how much they internalised all the ageist, sexist nonsense, even though it was to their detriment. Meanwhile 1950s Cooper, Tracy, Gable, Bogart etc all looked older than their years, and it never hurt their careers one jot.

Sure- Ginger Rogers is brilliant in the role. But so would have been plenty of other big name "faded" actresses who would have been the correct age for the role.

It's better now, but not by much.

Very good early spoof of TV, Hollywood and mid-America in mid-20th century

[SimonJack · 7/10 · 30 May 2020]

There was a time when some people weren't keen about having their earlier careers known. That may seem odd to many people well into the 21st century when hardly anything people do seems strange or shocking. So, many people today probably wouldn't find "Dreamboat" very interesting. But some movie buffs, and those who are interested in the culture of recent past generations, should enjoy the film. Those among us "senior" movie buffs will appreciate (and remember?) the satire. The film takes pokes at the growing medium of TV, at Hollywood and the age of silent films, and at the culture of the time.

Clifton Webb's Thornton Sayre has a "respectable" career as an English professor in the stereo-typical small-town college of middle-class America at the start of the mid-20th century. But, old Iron Face, as he learns students call him behind his back, has a problem when the school's board of directors learns of his "scandalous" past. He had been an actor. But not just any actor. He had been the romantic, swashbuckling, dashing heartthrob of the silent films who melted women's hearts - none other than Bruce Blair.

His character is fictional, of course, but there was such an actor who played romantic and swashbuckling characters. Douglas Fairbanks was the king of the daring heroes in the silent era. No doubt, the writers were parodying the earlier film hero along with the early days of Hollywood. In the swashbuckling scenes on TV with masks, costumes and makeup, Webb's Bruce Blair, with a mustache very much like that of Fairbanks, could pass for him.

But now, in "Dreamboat," Webb's Sayre had wanted to escape his flamboyant past and lead a respectable life. Things go awry when his students see re-runs of the old films on TV. Then, his overly nerdy, puritanically-raised daughter, Carol (Anne Francis), was shocked seeing her father as the hero in a silent film about the legendary Zorro. And, now his new life and teaching career, which he loved, is threatened. Fortunately for him, the school board defers to the president, Dr. Mathilda Coffey, played by Elsa Lanchester, to decide Sayre's future.

Sayre, aka "Dreamboat" Bruce Blair, sets out to save his job by trying to get the TV network to stop showing his old movies. He has to stay one step ahead of Dr Coffey who has romantic designs on him. The twice Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning Lanchester is a hoot in this role.

Ginger Rogers plays Gloria Marlowe, who was the heroine of many of Blair's films. She's the one who discovered him and got him his start in cinema. Now she wants the money and new fame that comes with their rediscovery through the afternoon movie re-runs on the boob tube. Sayre has to go to New York to stop the TV shows, and takes daughter Carol along. By this time everyone should have guessed how this will turn out. Well, it sort of does - as one would imagine, but the film has a little different twist that brings it to a funny and satisfying finish.

What modern viewers may enjoy as much as anything is the look at the days of early TV which was then a very real threat to the survival of the movie industry. In time, of course, the two fields would emerge with their own followings which often overlapped anyway. And some actors would work in both mediums, as well as on the live stage.

A number of other cast members brighten this story. Fred Clark is very good as Sam Levitt, and Jeffrey Hunter helps Carol come out of her shell. He takes her around the Big Apple so that she can experience the "real" side of life form which she had been so sheltered in her upbringing.

Here are some favorite lines from the film.

Thornton Sayre, "Doctor, get hold of yourself."

Carol Sayre, "Are you sure those pictures were meant to be shown to the public?" Thornton Sayre, "Times and moral standards have changed, my child."

Carol Sayre, "That waitress - the way she reacted to your kiss, I .. I felt as though I was peeking through a keyhole." Thornton Sayre, "Naturally. Those pictures were designed to capitalize on the vicarious cravings of middle-aged glandular cases."

Carol Sayre, "Did you realize at the time what a bad actor you were?" Thornton Sayre, "My child, at the time those films were made, I was recognized as one of the few real talents in Hollywood. Furthermore, I ranked second in a nationwide popularity poll." Carol, "Who was first?" Thornton, "Some stupid police dog. I've forgotten his name. But I'll have you know that my salary was three times more than his."

Dr. Mathilda Coffey, "Stay where you are. Don't come one step nearer." Thornton Sayre, "But I haven't moved. It was you who followed me in here." Dr. Coffey, "I have to find out the truth about you, no matter what may happen to me."

Gloria Marlow, "You ungrateful, untalented hypocrite."

Gloria Marlowe, "What were you when I found you on that California campus? A third-rate professor with a fourth-rate future." Thornton Sayre, "Discovered by a fifth-rate actress with a mentality that defies classification."

Gloria Marlowe, "And, what were you when I co-starred you in my pictures? An obscure ham, riding on my ability, and you knew it. That's why you quit Hollywood, before you were thrown out." Thornton Sayre, "There's one little mistake, my dear. I quit Hollywood before you were thrown out."

Thornton Sayre, "Apparently, my tired Juliet, your opinion of my acting ability is not shared by Hollywood. I have here a contract awaiting my signature, the terms of which would turn your green eyes red with envy."

Gloria, " What? You making pictures in Hollywood today?" Thornton Sayre, " Why not? Hollywood learned to talk after you left. There's an increasing demand for people with something to say."

Webb at his most acidic

[ilprofessore-1 · 6/10 · 8 February 2009]

This rather silly story about a dignified professor whose cloistered life is disturbed when the college discovers that he was once a silent-movie star shows off Clifton Webb at his most snobby, acerbic best. Teenage Anne Shirley is thoroughly plain and very believable as his equally superior daughter remote from real human experience until (of course) she meets Mr. Right. Whereas Webb plays this all with the right note of high-style comic outrage, unfortunately Ginger Rogers camps it up as the diva. Webb is much too aloof and effeminate an actor to be credible as anyone's heartthrob; and there is little chemistry between the two stars. But there are some wonderful parodies of silent-movies, however, and even an ingenious hotel barroom fight with the enraged professor watching and copying the moves he made in an old movie playing on the television set. Well worth watching if only to hear Webb toss off his barbs with perfect acidic aplomb.

Chuckles and Belly Laughs

[harry-76 · 9/10 · 25 February 2004]

This delightful spoof is pure joy, elevated by a spanking story (by John D. Weaver) deft direction and scripting (by Claude Binon) and cracking cast (headed by Clifton Webb and Ginger Rogers).

What's great is that this comedy doesn't pretend to be anything more than what it is: an amusing trifle with nifty observations about the film, television and radio industries.

One of our favorites, it's also to date (2004) not available on vhs, dvd, or shown on tv. Production Studio Twentieth Century Fox must know something we don't.

Donna Lee Hickey meets her match!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 12 September 2017]

Producer: Solomon C. SiegelCopyright 25 July 1952 by 20th Century- Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 25 July 1952. U.S. release: August 1952. U.K. release: 15 September 1952. Australian release: 23 October 1952. Sydney opening at the Regent. 7,495 feet. 83 minutes.

NOTES: Donna Lee Hickey changed her name to May Wynn, which was also her character's name in "The Caine Mutiny".

COMMENT: The trouble with "Dreamboat" is that, whilst the script has a very promising central comic idea, it doesn't develop it as entertainingly as it might (the obligatory romantic episodes between the two ingénues are a dead loss).

What it really lacks is the kind of bright, witty, sophisticated dialogue such a subject demands.

Dull, steadfastly routine direction specializing in long, static takes, doesn't help. Miss Rogers looks a bit past her prime, though she is very ravishingly attired. The rest of the cast is adequate. The send-ups of the silent screen are by no means clever, consisting solely of exaggerated acting. No explanation is tended for the peculiar, speeded-up effect that was most definitely not a characteristic of the original movies.

Most of the stock footage is not from silent films anyway, but from such films as The Mark of Zorro (1939). Still, there's a good fight sequence with Webb imitating his screen counterpart.

OTHER VIEWS: Writer/director Claude Binyon had a mighty good idea, but the conventional way he develops it is pretty disappointing. Despite the sterling efforts of a large and most interesting roster of players, and some delightful spoofs of TV commercials from Mr Magoo's U.P.A., Dreamboat is no more than passably entertaining at best. - JHR writing as George Addison.

Great pseudo silent films dispersed in a mediocre film.

[cgvsluis · 3/10 · 29 January 2022]

I love both Clinton Webb and a Ginger Rogers, but this film was so oddly put together it felt disjointed and was a bit of a miss for me.

"It's like exhuming a man from his grave."-Professor Thorton Sayers

"Here I had always thought of you as a dignified intellectual person!"-Carol

"The phenomenon of television. It encourages people who dwell under the same roof to ignore each other completely."-Professor Thorton Sayers

A stuffy university professor of Latin and English literature gets outed as being a silent film star of the past with the moniker "dreamboat". Now a widower, he and his daughter head to New York to get an injunction on the films being shown on tv, before he looses his job.

"Washed up for so many years, then all at once poof we are right back on top again."-Gloria

"Mr. Ainsley may I thank you for the most boring afternoon I have ever spent in my entire life? Goodnight!"-Carol

I love Ginger's earrings in the taxi cab home in her first ride "home" with Thorton. The age gap between Gloria (Ginger Rogers) and the professor was too pronounced and the ending just seemed wrong.

I did adore the pseudo-silent film bits played throughout the film.

Funny Back Then... Still Funny

[churei · 9/10 · 12 June 2007]

When it first appeared, Dreamboat hit the mark with Sid Caesar-like precision. The old old movies were still floating around the smaller channels, and it was not unusual to find the TV screen filled with the histrionics of Valentino, Pola Negri, among others. Today, their existing work can be found, occasionally on TCM. Dreamboat was an absolute 'hoot' in its initial release, and Webb and Rogers were every bit as wacked-out funny as Caesar and Coca in a TV sketch about silent movies. Today, Deamboat may seem a little obscure, perhaps, but its broad and zany humor will still be there. One hopes that someone somewhere decides it is time to produce that elusive DVD release of this film (which includes an adorable Anne Francis, one of those underrated stars who deserves special attention).

There could have been a really cute film here....but it often doesn't make much sense.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 26 September 2015]

I love Clifton Webb films. However, I was really disappointed when I watched "Dreamboat" as the script often doesn't make a lot of sense and the story is filled with ridiculous situations. Had the script been toned down a bit, it could have been a really cute movie.

When the film begins, Professor Sayre is a boring and contented man. However, his life is upset when students notice that some old silent movies being shown on TV star Sayre! It seems that back in the old days, Sayre was known as Bruce Blair--a Douglas Fairbanks-like actor. Now, his old leading lady (Ginger Rogers) is hosting these old films and they are referring to Blair as "Dreamboat". This causes a disruption on the campus and the boat are considering firing the professor because of this. So, Sayre takes off for New York to try to get the network to stop showing his old films, as he considers this an invasion of privacy. There, his very straight- laced daughter (Anne Francis) lets her hair down and has fun for the first time. What about Sayre? What's going to happen with him?

So much about this story is overdone and lacked subtlety. The story idea seems ridiculous when you see it. After all, so what if the professor used to be an actor? How would the entire campus be disrupted by this for more than a day or two? And, how could a school fire a man because he was an actor decades ago? But there is so much more that is overdone in the film. The head of the college (Elsa Lanchester) NOW is so smitten by Sayre. Now having this woman turned on once she realizes who is really is and begin pursuing him could have been cute but it was just way, way overdone here. Having her literally attacking him and sexually harassing him just made me cringe. The rest of the film is pretty much the same--interesting situations where the script and director just overdo it. Everyone and every situation is so extreme here--like a silly live-action 70s Disney film.

Now am I saying the film is bad? No. But it takes a first-rate idea and ruins much of the impact because it lacks subtlety or finesse. A clear misfire that SHOULD have been a delightful little comedy. Oh well, at least it ended well.

A brilliant and funny farce!

[standardmetal · 8/10 · 27 January 2015]

Clifton Webb at his most stuff-shirtish is the life of this takeoff on swashbucklers and television commercials. Even today these eerily seem to foreshadow the commercials still shown (only usually in color.) with their pointless animations and annoying voices uttering gross exaggerations.

Ginger Rogers, here without Fred Astaire, proves herself quite a good farceuse as Webb's nemesis, Anne Francis is good as Webb's daughter and Jeffrey Hunter, some years before playing Jesus in "King of Kings" (also known humorously as "I was a Teenage Jesus" because of his youthful looks, even if he was close to the right age) played opposite Miss Francis.

Other reliable character players included Elsa Lanchester, Fred Clark and Ray Collins.

The film was brilliantly directed by Claude Binyon from his own sharp script based on a story by John D. Weaver.

An Unexpected Sleeper

[dougdoepke · 28 February 2012]

By the title, I was expecting a slice of romantic nonsense from Hollywood's younger crowd. Instead, the movie's a sharply written, cleverly mounted satire of the early days of television. In short, the film turned out to be an unexpected sleeper. Now ordinarily, Webb's snooty epicene characters don't appeal to me. Here, however, he plays it fairly straight as a college professor with a past he's trying to live down. The trouble is his ridiculous old silent films keep turning up on program-starved TV, much to the haughty prof's embarrassment.

Credit the quality to writer-director Binyon who sometimes showed flashes of brilliance in what appears an otherwise checkered career. And here I thought Frank Tashlin was the first moviemaker to mine TV's rich lode of absurdity. I love it when the professor turns channels randomly in the courtroom, and each channel is programming something ridiculous, including his old movies. It's hilarious. It's also hard to know how much things have changed since then, especially with the commercials.

The rest of the storyline is entertaining but nothing special. I enjoyed seeing a very young Ann Francis who makes a surprisingly good nubile academic. Too bad, however, there's not more of the delicious Elsa Lanchester. Her amorous moves on Webb amount to one of ditzy pairings of the decade. Then there's that clever tie-in at the end, helping make this 90-minutes of obscure, unexpected delight. Too bad the movie wasn't served by a more appropriate title.

Premise of Former Silent Screen Star Turned Embarrassed Erudite Professor Makes no Sense

[Turfseer · 4/10 · 10 August 2023]

The comedic premise of "Dreamboat" faces significant challenges in terms of its plausibility, leading to a film that struggles to maintain a sense of coherence and believability. While comedies often have more leeway with their premises, even within the genre, there are limits to the level of absurdity that can be sustained effectively. Unfortunately, "Dreamboat," a 1952 comedy starring Clifton Webb and Ginger Rogers, pushes these limits to the point of undermining its own narrative.

The central premise revolves around English and Classical Literature Professor Thornton Sayre (Webb), who seeks a permanent injunction against NYC TV producer Sam Levitt (Fred Clark) for broadcasting silent movies from Sayre's earlier career as a matinee idol known as Bruce Blair, akin to Valentino. This premise raises eyebrows due to its lack of credibility. The notion that broadcasting decades-old melodramatic silent films could lead to scandal and jeopardize a professor's reputation is difficult to accept. The college's reaction and the portrayal of the broadcast's impact on television as a cause celebré appear contrived and disconnected from reality.

Furthermore, the film struggles to explain why Sayre keeps his past a secret from his daughter Carol (Anne Francis) and why he continues to do so even as she becomes a young adult. The lack of a compelling reason for this secrecy weakens the character dynamics and adds to the sense of implausibility.

In the film's second act, we are introduced to Gloria Marlowe (Rogers), a former flame of Sayre's who has now become a nightclub singer. Her involvement in promoting cosmetics while hosting the silent movies adds an additional layer of complexity, driven by her financial interests. However, Gloria's motivations and actions become focused when she attempts to manipulate Thornton by pretending to be indigent. Her goal is to persuade him to call off the lawsuit, showcasing her calculated efforts to exploit his sympathy for personal gain.

One notable strength of the film lies in its satirical recreation of silent movies, with Webb embodying the exaggerated heroics of Bruce Blair. These scenes offer a glimpse of humor and creativity, standing out amidst the film's shortcomings.

The climactic trial, in which Sayre wins a court case despite not holding rights to the films, further strains credibility. The judge's ruling based on altered films and their impact on Sayre's reputation lacks a solid foundation within the established narrative.

The film's conclusion includes sour notes, such as the dismissal of Sayre from his school after rebuffing unwanted advances from President Matilda Coffey (Elsa Lanchester). This subplot, attempting humor through inappropriate behavior, feels out of place and outdated.

The subplot involving Carol's romantic relationship and her father's objection also lacks clear resolution, making the reconciliation seem abrupt and unsatisfying.

Despite Webb's polished performance as the erudite professor, and Rogers' attempt at a pushy role, the film's premise hampers its comedic potential. "Dreamboat" struggles to deliver the punch expected from a comedy due to its implausible and disjointed narrative elements.

Alias Thornton Sayre

[theowinthrop · 8/10 · 12 March 2006]

Clifton Webb made several movies before his big hit film, LAURA. He even appeared in some silent films. But, like Sidney Greenstreet (whom unfortunately he never popped up to play against in any films) his real career in motion pictures does not begin until 1944. Then it takes off...in spurts. He is a hit as Waldo Lydeckker, and then plays a carbon copy of Waldo as the villainous Cathcart in THE DARK CORNER. Then he gets the role of Elliott Templeton, the world's greatest snob, in the first version of THE RAZOR'S EDGE.

It is not until Templeton that the studio revises it's views on the talented Mr. Webb. Up till that time, Webb was seen as a sophisticated (perhaps effeminate) villain - and had played the part well twice. Templeton is villainous only in one area - he sees no future for his niece Isabel (Gene Tierney) with Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power), so when Isabel breaks with the latter Elliott encourages her to do so (using her future large inheritance from him as a lure). He also suggests she marry Gray (John Payne), a safer, more reliable husband (and a stockbroker). This may seem villainous (if you like Power's character), but he accepts it readily enough. Isabel actually is more villainous as the story progresses, getting rid of a weakened rival with truly fatal results. But Elliott just becomes a selfish, self-indulgent joke as the film progresses. In the end we welcome him for being funny (in an unintentional way). After Elliott Templeton it occurred to 20th Century Fox (and later other studios) that Webb could be a comedian - and a sharp one.

They should have realized this to begin with. Webb, in his youthful heyday of first Broadway stardom (1920 - 1940) was a leading musical comedy star. Most people seeing him today as Mr. Belvedere or as John Philip Sousa (ironically, his only musical film part), or as the doomed Richard Sturgis in TITANIC can't think of him as one of the best singer comedians in Broadway history - at one point the leading rival to Fred Astaire! His decision to make STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER in 1953 destroyed the one opportunity he would have had to strut his musical comedy talents on celluloid. Vincent Minelli hoped he'd play Geoffrey Cordova, the "Renaissance Man of the Theatre" in THE BAND WAGON. He would have played with Astaire. Instead the film has British musical comedy star Jack Buchanan in the role.

What he might have been like as a silent film comic actor (or even dramatic actor) is hard to say. He only has one surviving modern film which tackles this issue. In 1952 he played Bruce Blair, once the partner with Gloria Marlowe (Ginger Rogers) in a series of silent romantic dramas. Their partnership is like that of Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky, who made about five films together in the late 1920s. Blair left movies at the end of the silent period - tired of the grind, and wanting to teach literature at college (where the superior Webb would gravitate too naturally). He is using his real name, Thornton Sayre, as his professorial name. He is there with his daughter, and a seemingly quiet academic life. Then all hell breaks lose - Gloria has been hired to be the hostess of a television series showing their old popular movies. And they are a hit. But they have made his students, fellow academe, and the head of the college (a hopelessly adoring Elsa Lanchester) recognize Sayre for whom he actually was.

The plot has Webb trying to bring legal action to prevent the showing of the films (particularly as ridiculous sound effects and rewritten message cards advertising products are making him look idiotic). Gloria backed by her agent/producer (Fred Clark) fight this, and Gloria - in trying to vamp Bruce - remembers how she did like him years ago but lost him to another woman. All of which leads to a final courtroom showdown.

The whole film is funny, but the best bits were Webb overacting (in the silent film method) in the silent films he made, such as a World War I aviation epic, which ends with a crash (but he's still able to kiss his beloved Rogers in his trademark triple arm kiss - they are in a clinch at the fade out of the silent film). There is also a priceless scene where an angry drunk in a bar starts a fight with Webb for accidentally turning on his wife. Webb, no physical pushover here, watches the physical wrestling throws of twenty five years earlier on the television screen, and repeats them on the drunk!

The problems with misused silent films bugged many retired film figures in the early days of television. Stan Laurel was angry at the butchering of his comedies for commercials (it ruined well planned timing for gags). So the film actually does show a situation that existed in early television. It also partly answers the question of what Webb would have been like in an earlier age of movies.

Well Worth Seeing

[jromanbaker · 8/10 · 8 June 2022]

I know it was relevant for Hollywood to keep people away from their televisions in the early 1950's but the use of satire against it is still applicable for today. The main thrust of the satire is the tiring and obtrusive advertisements that waste so much of viewer's time, and in this case its splitting up films ( I personally had to endure them while watching ' Dreamboat .' ) The plot is simple; Clifton Webb in one of his best roles is a teacher of literature who was once a silent film actor known as Dreamboat by his fans. Ginger Rogers who starred with him has without his permission got a television channel to both show these films and also to promote her perfumes cutting up the films. Webb decides to take action along with his outraged young daughter played to perfection by Anne Francis, ( why was she not seen more often in good films ? ) and the fun begins. End of spoilers. I like this film a lot despite the improbability of Webb being a sex symbol for a vast public, but I got over it by the sheer comedic timing of his performance. As for Rogers she seemed to have less screen time, but the time she has makes this also one of her best films. Jeffrey Hunter plays the young love interest for Anne Francis. But in my opinion he was not at his best. I am not sure what the well known critics of the day thought of this really entertaining film, but I feel it should be better known for its witty script, and its fine acting from Webb, Francis and Rogers.

Wow!

[madsully · 15 November 2004]

Very witty script. I had no idea that this movie existed.

Was flipping through the TV channels and settled on AMC, a channel that no longer runs black and white social comedies from the 30's through '50s.

I was delighted and surprised to find this Clifton Webb jewel. As a mother of two younger children (one ten months) it is difficult to find movies and TV shows that entertain both children and adults. This one fit the bill.

Ginger Rogers is incredibly well cast as the woman who is all for business and Webb is quite the comic.

***1/2

[edwagreen · 9/10 · 12 August 2017]

A small college town finds out that esteemed literature professor is not another than a silent screen star whose films appeared on the big screen 20 years before. Clifton Webb is a natural for the part and he is joined by Ginger Rogers, his leading lady in those films, whose career has been restored with the advent of television and the old films showing on that medium.

With a conservative college Board of Trustees, Webb faces the ax, unless the film showing stops so he goes with his brilliant daughter, Ann Francis, to New York to gain an injunction to stop the film.

Elsa Lanchester steals the scenes she is in by being a head trustee with a doctorate who pours on the lust for Webb both in her office and a New York hotel.

Francis finds there is more to life than academics when she falls for agent Jeff Hunter, who works for head honcho Fred Clark.

This is a non-stop riot of a film.

10/10

[exepellinglogin · 10/10 · 17 October 2021]

Thornton Sayre, a respected college professor, is teased when his old movies are shown on TV and sets out with his daughter to stop it. However, his former co-star is the hostess of the TV show that plays his movies and she has other plans.

A hilarious dream

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 24 April 2019]

'Dreamboat' is yet another one of those films where there is so much to it that makes you immediately want to see it. Am starting to see a bit of a pattern, and it is so great that is more of films that have big potential and meet them and even exceeding them after seeing many films where potential is frustratingly wasted. Seeing Ginger Rogers, Clifton Webb and Elsa Lanchester in the same film is like a dream come true, and it was so hard to resist when it popped up in my recommended for you section.

A dream was something that 'Dreamboat' turned out to be and a hilarious and criminally overlooked one at that. Will never consider it one of my all-time favourite films or one of the all-time greats, but it was a delight to watch, really cheered me up during a rough patch and would re-visit it again very happily. Loved the concept and felt 'Dreamboat' really did make the most of it, it is not a subtle film but don't think subtlety was what the film was going for. Actually very much loved the non-stop energy and everybody looking as though they were having enormous fun and that is always wonderful to see, nobody wants to see a film where the cast go through the motions and everything feels lazy and this is luckily far from that.

Beginning with what didn't quite work for me, the Anne Francis and Jeffrey Hunter subplot did slow the film down a little and the energy dips. Francis is cute and perky and the chemistry is sweet enough but did feel that Hunter was on the bland side.

Would also gladly have wanted to see more of a hilariously lustful Elsa Lanchester, it is a broad performance but one that is quite a joy.

However, Rogers' comic timing absolutely dazzles and she absolutely radiates in a role that easily could have been too over the top but found myself oddly rooting for her. Webb does acidic and prim very well, and actually felt the chemistry between them was nice and actually quite fetching if not quite fizzling. 'Dreamboat' looks lovely and is directed with precision and liveliness by Claude Binyon.

The script is enormously clever and filled with hilarious moments that are too numerous to list, and don't want to spoil the film too much who've not already seen it. While it satirises early television when television was in its infancy to witty effect, some of it felt affectionate too. The story crackles with energy and rarely lets up apart from the aforementioned subplot. What was also striking was that 'Dreamboat' was very much topical back then but it also feels relevant now and doesn't seem to have dated, did not find that what was being satirised and shown went over my head and did not feel as much that familiarity was needed.

Summing up, a little dream of a film that it is a shame that it's so overlooked today. 8/10

My Secret

[richardchatten · 9/10 · 31 March 2021]

Silent films were still a relatively recent memory when this delightful vehicle for Clifton Webb was made (itself now nearly seventy years old) and the supporting cast includes actors, including Webb himself, who had actually been in silents.

There's the usual joke about Rin Tin Tin, but It's as much about television as the cinema, since it was through their use on TV as filler that silent films began their emergence during the fifties from their long hibernation of a quarter of a century; hence the recent look back upon the era in 'Sunset Boulevard' (which Fred Clark had also been in) and 'Singin' in the Rain' and the later popularity of TV series set in the twenties like 'The Untouchables'.

Webb's character in his silent star personification as a silent star recalls both the derring-do of Fairbanks and the suavity of Barrymore; while the way he made female hearts flutter (like that of his college principal Elsa Lanchester in this movie) but was sneered at by men recalls Valentino.

Another film it recalls is the satire on games shows, 'Champagne for Caesar'. But despite Ronald Colman's engaging performance in the former, Webb's character is in the long run less aloof and eventually rather warms to the relics of his misspent youth cherishably recreated here.

A humorous and fun movie!

[vlevensonnd-87248 · 8/10 · 30 December 2020]

I really appreciate Clifton Webb as an actor and I have recently been watching his movies that I have not seen before. It is such a shame that there aren't more movies that he was in, but he was busy in the theater as well. This was a humorous and fun movie and I would definitely like to see it again! There is such a charm with these older movies that just don't seem to exist much in this day and age. I would highly recommend this to others!

Where has this movie been all my life?

[aramis-112-804880 · 6 April 2023]

Clifton Webb is a former movie star, now a college professor, who tries to suppress the showing of his creaky, ancient movies on the (then) new medium of television. Ginger Rogers plays an actress often teamed with him in those movies (as she was so often with Fred Astaire in real life, though these aren't dancing movies). Anne Francis is Webb's straight-laced,college-aged daughter, appalled by her father's hidden past.

Though Webb wants his old movies suppressed, Rogers loves being in the limelight again and is determined to keep their movies being broadcast. She's also able to fit in warbling a few numbers.

This movie is quite funny, especially after delightful supporting actor Fred Clark enters as the hustler/TV executive. Clark was always a major scene stealer, and he and the quiet Webb have a tug of war between them in their scenes together. Watch him in "Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine." Webb's dry delivery is wonderful, and he always comes out on top.

Though the movie displays new technology (a la 1952) it will appear dated to most people. It's black and white so young people won't come near it. And it's difficult to find as it seems to have slipped through the cracks of time. I was born only nine years after it was released and I though I considered myself something of a motion picture expert I never heard of it until 2023. It's nice to come to something such a treat late in life but I wish I'd found it twenty years earlier when I was a boy of forty. A delight.