This year commemorates the 75th anniversary of one of the most spine-chilling horror movies in cinematic history: “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.” Based on a beloved novel from 1946, the film follows the journey of Jim and Muriel Blandings, a couple living restless lives in their cramped Manhattan apartment. Desperate for more space, they purchase an old house in Connecticut that becomes a nightmare they never expected.
During their renovation ordeal, the Blandings family encounters a greedy real estate agent, a crumbling foundation, incompetent and condescending construction workers, water leakage, and an architect who readily succumbs to their grand aspirations. As costs escalate and schedules collapse, tensions reach new heights.
Renowned architect and author of “Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies,” James Sanders, believes that this film still resonates with anyone who has embarked on the journey of fixing or building a home. However, “Mr. Blandings” holds a significant place in the history of cinema for another reason.
“At precisely this moment in time, the American dream of suburban living, with more space, less congestion, and an abundance of greenery, took hold in its modern form. The film captures and epitomizes this shift,” Sanders explains.
The New York Times recently invited Sanders to delve deeper into the significance of “Mr. Blandings” and the real estate choices it portrays. Here is an edited and condensed version of the conversation.
The title of the movie, “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House,” is both serious and ironic. The protagonist, an advertising executive, ultimately achieves his dream home, but the process is a nightmare. Is the family’s move to the suburbs a heroic quest or a foolish endeavor?
On one hand, “Mr. Blandings” immortalizes the suffering that comes with major construction or renovation projects. The film has been remade twice and continues to serve as inspiration for countless home improvement shows. However, it is important to recognize that the movie reflects a specific time and place, offering an affirmative view of the millions of Americans who were beginning to move away from cities and towards car-oriented suburbs in the late 1940s.
Despite the countless struggles faced by Cary Grant and Myrna Loy’s characters, the film never questions whether leaving their two-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for a suburban home is anything other than a genuine dream.
The movie humorously depicts life in New York, showcasing Jim and Muriel’s struggle to navigate their overcrowded closet and share a tiny bathroom mirror. The scene culminates in a cringe-worthy moment in the kitchen, where their housekeeper, Gussie, awkwardly serves breakfast while their daughter quotes her progressive schoolteacher’s disdain for ad executives like her father. While this is presented as “woke” talk in 1948, by the end of the film, Jim has cleverly turned Gussie’s praise for a particular brand of ham into a successful product slogan.
In my opinion, the film satirizes both the schoolteacher and Jim himself. The world of advertising was a common target for satire in Hollywood during the late 1940s, just as network television would be in the 1950s. Hollywood saw both industries as rivals for the public’s attention. Therefore, the film’s subtle mockery of Jim’s reliance on Gussie (portrayed by the talented Louise Beavers) to create his breakthrough ad slogan was a typical industry tactic.
It is worth noting that the practice of having live-in maids in urban apartments was rapidly declining at that time. Most middle-class apartments before the war included at least one maid’s room. However, the smaller, more modern apartments built in the late 1940s and early 1950s were promoted as being conveniently “servantless.” Rising rental costs in the postwar years led many families to convert maid’s rooms into children’s bedrooms, while social changes made the concept of a live-in maid seem outdated in the city.
How were apartments portrayed in the decades following “Mr. Blandings,” as American families turned away from city life? Would you consider Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” in 1960 as the lowest point?
It is essential to distinguish between various types of New York apartments depicted in films. C.C. Baxter’s walk-up unit on the Upper West Side in “The Apartment” is a typical starter apartment that a young, single office worker might have rented before starting a family. It should not be compared to larger, upper-middle-class apartments like the one the Blandings family left behind. Glamorous penthouses from the 1930s were less prominent in New York movies during the 1940s and 1950s, although they did make appearances in films like “How to Marry a Millionaire.”
However, “bachelor” apartments, the well-furnished havens of Manhattan playboys, were a fixture in the 1950s and early 1960s. Think of Frank Sinatra’s apartment in “The Tender Trap” or Dean Martin’s in “Bells Are Ringing” — spacious and stylish units typically located in the East 50s, offering panoramic views of the East River.
As you suggested, upper-middle-class family apartments were not prevalent in postwar years. By the late 1960s and 1970s, large old apartments became burdensome. In “Diary of a Mad Housewife,” an eight-room apartment on Central Park West is a source of misery for the protagonist, Carrie Snodgress. Her socially ambitious husband cannot afford the multiple live-in servants the apartment was designed for, resulting in the overwhelming upkeep falling on her shoulders.
And we cannot forget “Rosemary’s Baby,” which turned an apartment in the Dakota into a haunting curse.
Indeed, the old Victorian apartment symbolized by the Dakota, with its eerie sounds, secluded corridors, and peculiar neighbors, stubbornly holds its dark presence. It engulfs the lives of Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse and their unfortunate baby.
Was there a defining moment when glamour was restored to the portrayal of New York apartment living? (I hope you don’t say it was Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street.”)
I would attribute the resurgence of glamour to the infusion of new money into New York during the 1980s. Tom Hanks’s Fifth Avenue duplex in “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” Donald Sutherland and Stockard Channing’s elegant apartment with Central Park views in “Six Degrees of Separation,” and the glamorous Midtown apartment in “Wall Street” all brought upper-end Manhattan apartments back into the limelight.
This trend continued well into the new millennium, culminating in the Fifth Avenue penthouse presented to Carrie Bradshaw by Mr. Big in the first “Sex and the City” movie. It was a moment that led Carrie to proclaim, “I have died and gone to real estate heaven.”
We have come a long way from the cramped 1940s apartment of Jim and Muriel Blandings, as well as their suburban Connecticut home.
“Living Small” is a biweekly column exploring the journey towards a simpler, more sustainable, or more compact life.
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