Where has the year gone?  We’ve already come to the end of the first quarter and yet this is my first “didja ever notice” post of 2008!  For the eleventh edition, I’ve picked a fairly easy topic – one that’s not quite as challenging as usual – in order to reinvigorate this blog series.

While watching the TCM premiere of the William Haines-Joan Crawford silent Spring Fever (1927) the other night, I was reminded of its talkie remake Love in the Rough (1930) with Robert Montgomery, Dorothy Jordan and Benny Rubin (among others).  Rubin’s Yiddish character was such a complete “fish out of water” at the swanky country club that Montgomery’s romances Jordan’s (while helping his boss to improve his golf game) that I started to recall other such characters in film.  Since “fish-out-of-water” stories provide ample opportunities for humorous situations, most are comedies.  Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) are two celebrated examples – both were Best Picture nominees whose screenplays and lead actors (Gary Cooper and James Stewart, respectively) were also nominated – but I have included a couple from other genres below (perhaps you can think of others to add?).

The Big Country (1958), which director William Wyler co-produced with its star Gregory Peck, features the actor as a sea captain that’s fallen in love with the daughter (Carroll Baker) of a wealthy rancher (Charles Bickford).  But when the captain ventures inland to meet his fiancee’s family, he’s suddenly an outsider in an unfamiliar world.  He gets caught up in the feud between his would-be in-laws’ family and another, led by Burl Ives (who won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award with his only Oscar nomination), while he struggles to prove that he’s worthy of the challenges in the great expansive West.  Besides the ‘family feud’, Peck’s character has to compete with a ranch foreman (Charlton Heston) that had always thought he was going to be Bickford’s son-in-law one day.  Stereotypically, the greenhorn is put on an unbroken horse to ride but later uses his navigation skills learned at sea to successfully navigate his way across the countryside to visit a schoolmarm (Jean Simmons) that strikes his fancy.  Franz Planer’s cinematography provided the imagery and the (Oscar nominated) score by Jerome Moross added the emotional punch that enabled Wyler to complete this essential drama.  Supporting actors Alfonso Bedoya and TV’s future Rifleman Chuck Connors play key roles.

Another starring Peck (and featuring Connors in a key supporting role) was Vincente Minnelli’s romantic comedy Designing Woman (1957), featuring Lauren Bacall in the title role.  Both leads play “fish-out-of-water” in the other’s world – he’s a sportswriter while she’s a fashion designer – and the film’s funniest scene mixes Peck’s macho poker playing buddies with Bacall’s creative friends, including a theatrical and seemingly effeminate character played by Tom Helmore.

The multi-talented Mexican actor Cantinflas, four years removed from his English language film debut in Michael Todd’s Academy Award winning Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), was the “fish-out-of-water” title character in the comedy musical Pepe (1960) that producer-director George Sidney utilized in countless humorous situations, many of which feature cameo appearances by various Hollywood film stars and starlets.  In addition to the readily available cultural differences gags, a stud horse appropriately named Don Juan – which Pepe treats as his son – provides additional “horse-out-of-pasture” set-ups.  Pepe (1960) airs tomorrow, March 31st, on TCM at 10 AM EDT.

Among the best of the more recent “fish-out-of-water” comedies are Crocodile Dundee (1986) and its first sequel Crocodile Dundee II (1988); both feature Australian Paul Hogan in the title role and star the actor-screenwriter’s future wife Linda Kozlowski.  The first begins with Kozlowski’s character, a New York journalist named Sue Charlton, out of place in the Outback of Hogan’s Mick Dundee; the second half of the movie reverses the scenario and, due to his rugged adaptability and innate likeability, Dundee has a fairly easy time adjusting to the jungle of the big city.  The second in the three movie series starts where the first left off, with these two lovebirds in New York, but ends in Dundee’s territory, and the crocodile hunter shows off his talents in ‘a game’ that ensnares a South American drug lord and his gangsters.

What are some of your favorite movies that feature “fish-out-of-water” characters?