Tootsie

Just catching a bit of one of my favourite movies, 'Tootsie'. Dustin Hoffman is absolutely fabulous playing a woman. His Dorothy has no problem putting men in their place. And Charles Durning as her suitor is peerless. Men often do a better job of playing women than women, have since Shakespeare.

Robin Williams nailed it in Mrs. Doubtfire too. He put up with nothing. When men play women their personalities change drastically. It's not just the way they have to walk and talk, they actually take on feminine personalities -- more caring and nurturing. Or as Hoffman put it, "I was a better man as a woman than I ever was as a man with a woman." They can't help it.

But I think my favourite movie about confused roles is 'Indiscrete', with Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. To my mind and taste, Cary Grant was the ultimate leading man. He had it all. And that urbane, mid-Atlantic accent. Man, irresitable. The fact that his mental mother raised him as a girl for the first part of his life might have had something to do with his appeal. Apparently, he had had an older brother who had died in infancy, so when Cary came along (Archie Leach at that time), his crazy mother was so afraid something would happen to this son, that she turned him into a girl. Gospel. He was rumoured to have been bi-sexual, probably as a result of all that girly stuff he grew up with. But who cares? He was the perfect man.

'Indiscrete' isn't shown too often, but it's about two people who have a love affair that only works because she thinks he is married and can't get a divorce. When she finds out he is actually single, Ingrid says, "How dare he make love to me and not be married!" The sets are beauftiful, the gowns are gorgeous and all the men are usually in black tie. It's a perfect movie.

Do yourself a favour and watch it.