CARY GRANT’S contribution to the reality of movie Utopia is based on several factors, none of which can be dismissed as mere entertainment fantasy, a familiar accusation based on a belittling definition of the arts in general as a less real, or even useless occupation in comparison to the pursuit of politics, social studies, economic policies, science and technology. Grant’s uniqueness in creating a locus of outstanding films can be attributed to his roots in the very real circumstances of his life, and even the social life of people anywhere. Those circumstances would consist of his early life of hardship and drifting, his unwavering commitment to the arts, and, believe it or not, his coming of age during the upbeat social open-mindedness of the Franklin. D. Roosevelt American government reign, with its creatively experimental New Deal policies for the Arts between the mid-1930s and mid-1940s.
More to the topic, we must emphasise the importance of his artistic/cinematic collaboration with five specific film directors, Leo McCarey, George Cukor, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and Stanley Donen, as well as actresses like Irene Dunne, Katherine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, and Ingrid Bergman.

Stylish beginnings
In 1937, after five years of making various films under contract to Paramount Studios, which also loaned him out to MGM, Cary Grant was relieved to become a freelance actor, whose choice of collaboration with specific directors and scriptwriters, produced  the self-created works of cinematic art they believed in. The idea of these films were then pitched and sold to a studio, but not just any studio; it had to be one willing to break new ground, one able to also see the economic possibilities in an artistic style that turned its back on familiar stories and styles of directing and acting which had become routine conventions.
RKO was the studio that had the needed flexibility and belief in such new talent. A clean, tightly designed production studio in Los Angeles, with its symbol of the globe straddled by a radio tower on its roof, and the unique style of long continuous panels filled with posters of the studio’s recent releases around its architecture, RKO emerged at the beginning of the film-sound era in 1928, and was called RKO Radio Pictures Inc, since it was the first major studio to transfer the radio process to filmmaking, bringing to an end the silent-movie era.
This innovation itself was perhaps RKOs stake in helping to create a tradition of the new, and Grant’s new collaboration with independent producer/directors like Leo McCarey and Howard Hawks would release instant classic masterpiece films for RKO Pictures from the late1930s to the late 40s.                                  

The first film to reveal Grant’s originality as a screen-star is ‘THE AWFUL TRUTH’ of 1937, directed by Leo McCarey, but made for Columbia Pictures, the other studio apart from RKO that Grant had acceptance in.
It is the nature of this film, and especially the writing style of its script, which gelled with Grant’s personality, not just as an actor, but as himself. This is the magical relationship which all truly authentic art delivers; a finding of form to suit content.
McCarey’s script provided the content which found its theatrical form in Grant’s acting. But significantly, Grant’s acting had, by 1937, become almost synonymous with Grant’s being, or his very personality.
Never an actor who should be called upon to simply assume character roles, Grant made a profoundly simple yet complex creative statement by equating his cinematic performances with his actual personality. In one definitive comment he once made about his acting style, he said: “I play myself to perfection.”
There has always been an attractive, pleasant, comedic and highly enjoyable implication in this position by Cary Grant, since it obviously implied that he would never appear in any role that did not correspond with his aesthetic and moral values, since that would not represent him. Of course, this is a highly independent position in a profession that thrives on make-believe characterizations.

Screwball comedy
Grant’s credo of playing himself to perfection also came to reflect and epitomize the objective of a new style of Hollywood film-making called ‘Screwball Comedy’. The term should not however be taken as a complete definition of this film style, since there is much more to ‘Screwball Comedy’ than fast-talking, wisecracks, wild incidents, etc, as we shall see.
For instance, Leo McCarey’s ‘THE AWFUL TRUTH’ is much more than Cary Grant’s and Irene Dunne’s comedic competitive differences as a separated couple; it is also a practical lesson in really getting to know oneself and another’s.
The origin of ‘Screwball Comedy’ as a Hollywood style has diverse explanations: One major one is that it was a necessary uplifting response to the hard-times of the preceding years of the American Depression, the Wall Street crash, etc.
Apart from this credible (and perhaps perennially relevant) explanation, screwball comedies also allowed Americans (North and South) to withstand and transcend many negative social and private ongoing experiences, because it rose above such experiences via the discipline of art.
This sort of Utopian vision is more useful because of its non-conformity, than reflecting back how people really are at a period of time which cannot (and should not) define them one way culturally forever. This cinematic style constructs and presents a reality of more pleasant possibilities which is not crude or violent, and more tolerant to the human quality of creative individualism.
The contemplation of such values and behaviour on the screen is therefore not an escape from a more ‘true’ social reality, but rather the socially inspirational location of a style of theatre/acting which begins to erase the negative stagnant habits of our real lives.