Dream Wife is a 1953 film written and directed by Sidney Sheldon.
Clemson Reade (Cary Grant) is an oil company executive who travels to the fictional Middle Eastern nation of "Bukistan" to complete an oil deal. While he's there, the Khan of Bukistan practically throws his gorgeous young daughter Princess Tarij at Clemson. Not only is Tarij stunning, but she has been trained to be a submissive wife who will dedicate herself to pleasing her husband. However, Clemson politely declines.
He might be declining in part because Princess Tarij is less than half his age, but the real reason is that he has a lovely fiancée, Priscilla "Effie" Effingham (Deborah Kerr). Effie is no adoring future homemaker, however; she is a State Department bureaucrat who at that very moment is trying to negotiate a treaty with Bukistan for those same oil rights. Clemson doesn't exactly mind Effie having a career, but he minds being persistently neglected by a woman who's singularly dedicated to her career. When Effie, with the encouragement of her boss Walter (Walter Pidgeon), postpones her wedding to Clem indefinitely because she'll be too busy with the Bukistan negotiations, Clem snaps. He calls off the wedding, breaks up with Effie, and cables Bukistan to accept the offer of marriage to Princess Tarij.
Princess Tarij flies to America with a flock of servants, but she doesn't speak any English, and aside from that there are all sorts of diplomatic concerns with Clem marrying a foreign princess in the middle of treaty negotiations. So the State Department assigns a diplomat to the case, someone who knows Bukistan and speaks the language...Effie.
One of only two films directed by Sidney Sheldon, who was then working as a screenwriter in Hollywood but would soon start on a hugely successful career as a romance novelist.
Tropes:
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The language that the Bukistani characters and Deborah Kerr are speaking is faux-Arabic gibberish.
- Call-Back: Clem and Ellie, who earlier talked about the "earthquake" when they kissed, feel another earthquake when they enjoy The Big Damn Kiss at the end.
- Completely Unnecessary Translator: Clem is having an audience with the Khan, with a courtier translating. After Clem says that he can't stay, the Khan says in English "But of course you cannot stay"...then, after that power move, lets the courtier keep translating for him.
- Deadpan Snarker: Clem does this a lot. When Effie introduces him to some of her State Department coworkers, Clem says, "I must say I'm delighted to meet you," then adds with heavy sarcasm, "mustn't I."
- Delayed Reaction: Apparently in the back story, the first time Effie kissed Clem she said it was "like an earthquake." In the third act he plants one on her and she's entirely unimpressed. That is, until he leaves, when she nearly faints and actually feels a rumbling like an earthquake. She only realizes it was the kiss after the secretaries stare blankly at her when she says "Earthquake!".Effie: Oh no.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Clem quizzes his married coworkers about how they deal with their wives. When one makes a wistful comment about how women these days don't come trained to focus on a husband and babies, Clem suddenly realizes that he knows a woman who is focused on precisely those things.
- Funny Foreigner: A lot of vaguely racist humor about all the Bukistanis in New York. The hotel manager comes to Clem in a panic because Ali, the princess's body guard, is trying to "buy" the chambermaids for the Khan's harem. ("Six of them have already accepted!)
- Literal Metaphor: Clem comes into the suite where Effie is talking with the Khan and asks her how she's doing. She says "I've got him eating out of my hand." Then as Clem watches she literally feeds him out of her hand, taking a snack from the table and putting it in the Khan's mouth. (It's a thing women do in Bukistan.)
- Married to the Job: Effie, who once bailed on a romantic vacation with Clem for work, lets Walter walk right into her romantic dinner with Clem for more work, and says that she and Clem have to postpone the wedding, for her work. Clem dumps her.
- Meaningful Appearance: Effie's rather overly assertive manner is symbolized when she shows up to a would-be romantic dinner at Clem's wearing a hat with a sort of spiked decoration in the middle that makes it look like a World War I German's spiked helmet.
- Property of Love: Discussed Trope. It's a way of life in patriarchal Bukistan, as Effie says that when Clem gets married to Tarij, "she becomes your property." Ultimately subverted when Tarij comes to America and under Effie's influence becomes a liberated woman.
- Qurac: Bukistan, a country in a deliberately vague location where all the women wear harem outfits and walk three paces behind their men.
- Romantic Candlelit Dinner: Subverted. Clem has arranged a fancy dinner at home. He lights candles and everything, only for Effie to stroll in and flip the lights on. Effie isn't very tuned in to Clem's desire for romance.
- Sexy Sweater Girl: Bukistani women may be forbidden to kiss men they aren't married to, but that doesn't stop Tarij from wearing a series of very, very tight tops.
- Swapped Roles: Clem kisses Effie, while Tarij starts going out on her own and talking to men. In the next scene after this happens, Tarij is wearing a Western-style dress and being more assertive, while Effie is wearing a more Bukistani-style dress, fetching Clem drinks, and sitting on the floor and gazing up at him adoringly.
