'Cary' on! Hollywood icon Grant gets second BAM retrospective

By Damian Harris-Hernandez

“Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.”

So goes the actor’s famous saying. Whether that holds true today or not, apparently everybody at least wants to see Cary Grant, as the Brooklyn Academy of Music offers a second retrospective in a year of the actor’s work with “Cary Grant 2,” featuring 20 films starring the notorious ladies’ man from July 9-29.

English circus performer turned iconic American movie star, Grant became the darling of great directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks and Frank Capra. During his three-decade career, he acted in more than 70 films with Marilyn Monroe, Ingrid Bergman and both Hepburns.

The three-week retrospective covers the broad scope of Grant’s work, screening early gems like Norman Z. McLeod’s horrifying “Alice in Wonderland” with Grant dressed in full bodysuit as the mournful Mock Turtle. Movie goers can also catch his trademark mid-Atlantic accent in more renowned films such as “Notorious,” a Nazi thriller; the screwball comedy “Bringing up Baby”; and “Arsenic and Old Lace,” featuring homicidal grannies.

And no Cary Grant film series would be complete without the man versus crop-duster scene in Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest,” showing all day on July 11.

“Cary Grant 2” at BAM Rose Cinema [30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Place and St. Felix Street in Fort Greene, (718) 636-4100] runs July 9-29. Tickets $12. For info, visit www.bam.org.