Father Goose

Father Goose (1964) is a wartime comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Cary Grant at his most deliberately unglamorous. His Walter Eckland is a South Pacific beach bum who gets press-ganged into service as a coastwatcher — spotting enemy aircraft from a remote island — with a case of whisky as the entire recruitment package.

The arrangement suits everyone until a French schoolteacher, Catherine Freneau (Leslie Caron), and seven of her pupils turn up on the island, fleeing Japanese forces across the region. Trevor Howard plays the naval commander who engineered the whole mess and now has to manage it by radio. Grant's chemistry with Caron is built on friction rather than charm, which gives the film an edge the usual romantic comedies of the era didn't have.

Peter Stone and Frank Tarloff's screenplay picked up the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay — the only Oscar of Grant's career, technically. Cary Grant himself received a Golden Globe for his performance. Stream Father Goose (1964) online on iFILM.