Houseboat

Houseboat (1958) is a Hollywood romantic comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Cary Grant plays Tom Winters, a Washington attorney and widower who ends up living on a converted barge on the Potomac with three children who have no particular interest in his authority.

The kids decide their father needs a wife and engineer the hiring of a housekeeper — Signorina Rosaura, played by Sophia Loren. She turns out to be considerably less ordinary than advertised: the daughter of an Italian diplomat, quietly escaping her own life. Director Melville Shavelson builds the comedy out of the boat's close quarters, the children's schemes, and two adults stubbornly refusing to admit what is becoming obvious to everyone around them.

The real-life chemistry between Grant and Loren — a relationship that reportedly began on this very shoot — gives the film an energy that no screenplay can manufacture. Breezy, warm, and exactly as long as it needs to be. Watch Houseboat (1958) online on iFILM.