Father Goose

Father Goose is a 1964 American Technicolor romantic comedy film set in World War II, starring Cary Grant, Leslie Caron and Trevor Howard. The title derives from "Mother Goose," the code name assigned to Grant's character. Based on a story A Place of Dragons by Sanford Barnett, the film won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It introduced the song "Pass Me By" by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh, later recorded by Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra and others. Plot While the Royal Australian Navy evacuates Salamaua, Papua New Guinea, in February 1942 ahead of a Japanese invasion, Commander Frank Houghton coerces an old friend, American beachcomber Walter Eckland, into becoming a coast watcher for the Allies. Houghton escorts Eckland to deserted Matalava Island to watch for Japanese airplanes. To ensure Eckland stays put, Houghton sees to it that his own ship "accidentally" knocks a hole in Eckland's launch while departing, so his only boat is a utility dinghy. To motivate Eckland, Houghton has his crew hide bottles of whisky around the island, rewarding each aircraft sighting (once it is confirmed) with directions to one of the bottles. Eventually, Houghton offers Eckland a replacement (actually another coast watcher in need of rescue), but Eckland has to retrieve him from nearby Bundy Island by dinghy. He instead finds eight civilians stranded there who escaped from Rabaul: Frenchwoman Catherine Freneau and seven young schoolgirls (four British, two French and an Australian) under her care. She informs him that the man he came for was killed in an air raid. Eckland reluctantly takes the party back to Matalava with him, but there is no safe way to evacuate them. The fastidious Freneau clashes repeatedly with the slovenly, uncouth Eckland; they call each other "Miss Goody Two Shoes" and "a rude, foul-mouthed, drunken, filthy beast," respectively. In the end, though, he adjusts to her and the girls, with Eckland getting one of the traumatised girls to speak again. Freneau learns that Eckland had been a history teacher before he became fed up and chose life in the South Pacific. Afterwards, Eckland cares for Freneau after they mistakenly believe she has been bitten by a deadly snake. With nothing else to do, he gives her whiskey; she gets drunk and speaks freely.