The Grass is Greener (1960)

"Sometimes I'm convinced that the greatest barrier between our countries is the bond of a common language..."

‘You’re the Earl of Rhyall, not the Count of Monte Cristo…’

The stately homes of England, how beautiful they stand
To prove the upper classes have still the upper hand
Though the fact that they have to be rebuilt
And frequently mortgaged to the hilt
Is inclined to take the gilt
Off the gingerbread
And certainly damps the fun
Of the eldest son

But still, we won't be beaten
We'll scrimp and screw and save
The playing fields of Eton
Have made us frightfully brave
And though if the Van Dycks have to go
And we pawn the Bechstein Grand
We'll stand by the stately homes of England

Noel Coward, from Operette, 1938.

In 1955, facing £5 million in death duties (and with only five years to cough up the dough), the Duke of Bedford opened Woburn Abbey to the public. Other country houses had been open to the public before— a few rooms here, a few rooms there— but, as the Duke of Bedford recalled in his delightful autobiography, A Silver-Plated Spoon (1959), Woburn was the first house to be opened on any commercial scale— to the horror and dismay of Bedford’s fellow peers. A funfair and Safari Park followed (a British Disneyland?), capped by Nudist Paradise (1958) in which Woburn provides a star location, and by the first season, some 181,000 visitors had passed through Woburn’s gates, welcomed by the Duke who liked to greet his guests as they stood in the queues. As with Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Bedford became a celebrity, with regular appearances on Pathé News and in the popular press. Admiringly entrepreneurial, the Duke advertised cleaning fluid on television: “Flash! The best cleaner for any home" and American Express: “Don’t leave your castle without it!”

The Grass is Greener (1960): Osterley Park, Middlesex.

Born survivors, the aristocracy. Or at least some of them. The grander houses survived. In contrast, Sir Roy Strong’s influential exhibition, The Destruction of the Country House 1875-1975, held at the V & A in 1974, recorded the demolition of a thousand smaller country houses destroyed since 1875, brought about by ‘falling estate incomes, death duties, rising costs and damage caused by government requisition during the Second World War’. The exhibition helped to change public opinion, even if at Stonor (Park) in Buckinghamshire, the family still ate their lunch behind a screen— as the Great British Public trooped through the dining room— and where, in Somerset, Charles Clive-Ponsonby-Fane (We Started a Stately Home [1980]) had, finally, to admit defeat and give up Brympton d’Evercy (his rescued family seat), despite his valiant attempt to keep the house afloat— despite the vineyard, the apple brandy distillery, agricultural museum and other public attractions.

‘Cary Grant: an unlikely Earl…’

And it’s against this background that we need to view Stanley Donen’s The Grass is Greener (1960). Cary Grant stars as an unlikely Earl, with Deborah Kerr as a slightly less unlikely Countess, both flirting with infidelity in a country house (Osterley) they’ve recently opened to the public. They grow mushrooms. Cary Grant’s a bizarre choice. The part was offered to Rex Harrison, but Rex was unable to make it due to the tragic, terminal illness of poor Kay Kendall. Cary Grant’s persona, though, is spot on. Beneath the eccentric, vague and absent-minded aristocrat, he’s a sharp as nails, and with his glasses, he looks suspiciously like the Duke of Bedford, something which must have been apparent to a British audience. If you’ve ever visited a ‘Stately Home’, the yokel you encountered at the gate (the dishevelled tramp you assumed to be the gardener) is far more likely to be Lord McWotNot than the over-friendly guide who jumps out at you in the hall unsolicited, to inform you that the initials ‘V R’ stand for— I kid you not— King Victoria. And it always amuses me that Cary Grant might have become Mister Bond; he was Cubby Broccoli’s first choice, which may not seem as far-fetched as it sounds. The man had the looks and, at least, was English (sort of), unlike Connery, Lazenby, Dalton and Brosnan— although thinking about it, 007 is supposed to be Scots-Swiss, or at least, in Fleming’s later books.

“You’re a millionaire and I’m a mushroom grower…”