Matialth
Good concept, poorly executed.
Kidskycom
It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.
StyleSk8r
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Taha Avalos
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
csteidler
Cary Grant is the famous Dr. Lamar, proprietor and doctor at a popular and very lucrative beauty clinic in Paris. The business is a huge success: Grant beautifies his patients with everything from diet and exercise advice to plastic surgery. He also sells face cream on the radio. A stylish opening sequence shows Grant entering his clinic and walking through to his office to great acclaim: everyone in the place is beautiful, everyone is smiling, and they are all delighted to see Dr. Lamar. He has a great gig. However....Personal secretary Helen Mack wishes that Grant would wake up and realize that all the women patients falling in love with him don't really know him. "It isn't you they fall for," she tells him. "It's just the trimmings."Expressing even stronger disapproval is Edward Everett Horton, a patient's husband who barges in and demands that Grant stop treating his wife-he likes her the way she is and doesn't want her beautified.Genevieve Tobin, the wife, is an extremely enthusiastic patient. When Grant finishes her treatments, he declares that she is "perfect," his greatest creation. When he further declares that he is done with her, however, Tobin notes, "He only thinks he is."From here the plot runs into a confusion of Tobin leaving Horton for Grant, while Mack does some hand-wringing and wishes that Grant would come to his senses and put his considerable skills to a more noble use. It's entertaining enough, though not really believable for a minute. Grant and Tobin do indeed look good, despite the rather obnoxious characters they play. And Helen Mack probably comes across best--at least, she plays the most appealing role. Grant sings a nice song, and appears actually to be playing the piano. Overall, it's more a curiosity than a film that works as a moral tale or even a light romance...however, if you want to see what a clinic staffed by the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1934 would look like, here's your chance.
Michael_Elliott
Kiss and Make-Up (1934) ** (out of 4)Maurice Lamar (Cary Grant) is a famous plastic surgeon living in Paris where he works on making women beautiful all day long. His secretary Anne (Helen Mack) is secretly in love with him but the doctor decides to head off with the married Eve (Genevieve Tobin) who he feels is his masterpiece work. Eve's husband Marcel (Edward Everett Horton) ends up striking up a relationship with Anne and soon all four are on a crash course.KISS AND MAKE-UP is without question one of the strangest films from this era of Hollywood. It got into theaters before the Hayes Office started to come down on sexuality and the Pre-Code nature of the film is something that would probably attract people to it. I will admit that the free sexuality running through the first half of the picture was quite good and seeing Grant kiss a married woman isn't something that too many movies did back in the day.With that said, this is without a doubt a pretty bad movie on many levels. It remains slightly entertaining simply because of how weird the thing is. The first twenty-five minutes basically take place in the plastic surgeon office where we see several of the beautiful women as well as some of the ugly ones hoping to look better. Seeing Grant flirt and talk his way through the people was mildly entertaining but there's so much here that happens for no apparent reason including a meeting with an old college friend that never pays off. The blatant sexuality is a plus but things just get stranger.From here we get the weird love story with the two couples basically trading off partners for whatever reason. None of these segment, clocking in around thirty-minutes total, adds up to anything entertaining and in fact it's just downright boring. Even worse if the final five-minutes where it seems director Harlan Thompson was trying to pay homage to the Keystone Kops and it just doesn't work. To date this here was Grant's biggest role and he's fun to watch but there's no question that there's not much else. Mack and Tobin are decent in their roles but but characters are poorly written.KISS AND MAKE-UP is weird enough to where it's worth watching if you're a film buff but there's no doubt that it was Grant's worst picture up to this point in his career. With that said, he does sing a song!
SimonJack
In just two years, and with more than a dozen films behind him, Cary Grant was a hit and commanded star status and leads in most of his films. While many of his movies were very good, a few weren't much better than run-of-the mill. "Kiss and Make-Up" is one of those. The title of this movie is a play on words – make-up then being used to refer to women's makeup and cosmetics. Grant is a doctor in this film – a plastic surgeon living in Paris who has built his particular calling into a beauty empire. He will do the usual face-lifting and other surgeries, but much of his professional guidance is in diet, exercise, the use of special beauty products and all sorts of pampering practices for the body. It's a real body-worship plot in his beauty salon. But after he "creates" the perfect woman and she leaves her husband for him, he finds the tables turned. Grant plays Dr. Maurice Lamar who gets a dose of his own medicine. The perfect beauty is Genevieve Tobin as Eve Caron. The husband who liked his wife the way she was before and winds up divorced from here is Marcel Caron, played by Edward Everett Horton. Another principal character is Lamar's secretary-manager, Anne, played by Helen Mack. Lamar eventually comes to his senses and is saved from the hedonistic lifestyle of body-worship. The movie has a car chase and Cary Grant sings. He could carry a tune, but nothing like the noted singing stars. He also plays the piano – a talent he used some in later films and frequently in his personal life. Marcel and Anne have the only good song in the film – they both love their "Corn Beef and Cabbage."With all of the attention to physical beauty and the number of beauties in the salon, this film can soon begin to wear on one. The plot is thin and shallow. It's probably only of interest to die-hard Cary Grant fans.
blanche-2
Cary Grant, Genevieve Tobin, Helen Mack, and Edward Everett Horton star in "Kiss and Make Up," a 1934 film. Grant plays a popular plastic surgeon, Dr. Maurice Lamar (the film takes place in France). He falls for one of his makeovers (Tobin) who leaves her husband (Horton) and marries Lamar. Despite her looks, Lamar soon realizes he has created a monster. Meanwhile, Lamar's secretary Anne is in love with him and becomes increasingly unhappy as he seems to need her constantly but takes her for granted. Can you guess what happens? This actually is a musical with three songs, and Grant does his own singing. He must have - no one could have dubbed his awful tremolo. Other than that, he actually had a pleasant singing voice.A very slight comedy, and I was surprised to read that Carole Lombard was supposed to play the role of the secretary but turned it down. Good move. And that casting wouldn't have worked. Lombard was certainly too beautiful to have been ignored by Lamar. Mack was pretty without being an absolute knockout. Genevieve Tobin does a good job as the annoying Eve, and Horton is funny as her husband, who wants his wife's old looks and personality back.This film was really beneath Grant but he was too new to turn it down. He is perfect for the role of a handsome, dapper womanizer and is very good.See it for the young Grant, but don't expect too much.