Grade: D-
Synopsis: Facing foreclosure, a theater owner (Cary Grant) meets a boy with a dancing caterpillar.
Aside from being a possible inspiration for the classic Looney Tunes cartoon with the dancing frog, Once Upon a Time is wholly forgettable.
Cary Grant is fine as a huckster showman and James Gleason is good as his right-hand man, but they’re completely undone by a routine script and an awful supporting cast.
Defacto lead Ted Donaldson is neither charming nor sympathetic and instead comes across as an annoying brat. The scene where Cary Grant smacks him is entertaining for all the wrong reasons.
Donaldson’s character’s mother, played by Janet Blair, has absolutely no chemistry with Grant, and the Bride of Frankenstein hairdos she wears are laughable.
To top it all off, the predictable script offers little in the way of drama or laughs, and even at 89 minutes feels much too long.
Bottom Line: Once Upon a Time is for Cary Grant completists only.
