Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

eschetic-2 Barely three and a half years after just scraping out a month's run (7-31 Oct. 1953) at Broadway's Coronet Theatre (on west 49th Street; since renamed the O'Neill), MGM relied on the earlier solid London success of the play to lavish a wonderful cast and - for the most part - carefully "opened up" production on a sadly trimmed down screenplay of this slyly subversive boulevard comedy and were rewarded with a modest hit.Ava Gardner is the increasingly frustrated wife of Stewart Granger, an internationally successful and entirely complacent "workaholic" (before the term had been coined) using the perpetually frustrated David Niven to attempt to rekindle passion in her spouse. When the "second honeymoon" cruise Gardner inveigles Granger into leaves the trio (and Granger's dog) marooned on a south sea island (were there other survivors? That's for later plot developments), Granger continues right on managing the world around him - building a big hut for himself and his wife and a little one of the title for Niven - or the unattached male.The core of the actual plot of the play only gets going about half way through the film when Niven proposes that Granger and he alternate as tenants of the Little Hut - sharing the only female on the island as Granger has been willing to share the only pair of shoes (his).Reason (which Granger considers his strong point) reigns and frustration reigns supreme - for a while.David Niven and Ava Gardner are superb in their appointed roles of suave would-be seducer and seductress, and Stuart Granger - usually called upon merely to be handsome and virile in action roles and the odd miscast specialty (a crowing pretty-boy as Apollodorus in Shaw's CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA in 1945) - gives one of the better acting performances of his film career as the husband who may actually be as smart as he thinks he is. 33 years later he would again show this suave urbanity opposite Rex Harrison in Granger's first (and BOTH their last) Broadway engagements in a hit revival of Somerset Maugham's THE CIRCLE which only ended with Harrison's death. We'd be far richer if Granger had used these skills more often.As promising as the menage is, this is, after all, a very British Boulevard Comedy AND Hollywood in the 1950's which is to say that (unlike the source play) very little sex actually goes on. To be frank, if you don't give yourself over to the ideas driving the contrivances it does get a bit silly. The same basic plot is far more satisfyingly developed three years later in the Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr/Robert Mitchum/Jean Simmons (Stewart Granger's actual wife) THE GRASS IS GREENER, based on an even less successful play, 'though for some reason that superior trifle failed at the box office, and much earlier in J.M. Barrie's superb THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON.As lavishly as MGM set the piece, there were unfortunate lapses - the silliness which ends the stay on the island is cartoonishly presaged in what should have been a moment of genuine excitement - the sinking of the yacht that PUTS them on the island. Ultimately we only get about three quarters of an hour of the real Little Hut, but ninety good minutes of David Niven, Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger that make the film a fun diversion. Not high culture, but a worthy guilty pleasure.We even get some very nice garnish in Walter Chiari (reputed to be Ava's actual lover at the time). As one of his better speeches goes: "Boola, boola!"

evelynruthragan Not everyone who sees "The Little Hut" will understand the humor displayed. It is a more worldly comedy from another time--fifty years ago. What made us laugh then or 100 years ago or even now, is different, because we are products of the time period and location in which we live.Ava Gardner portrays Lady Susan Ashlow, a play on a previous character from "The Sun Also Rises", Lady Brett Ashley (also released 1957). Stuart Grainger, who co-starred with her in "Bhowani Junction" the previous year and David Niven, who co-stared with her later in "55 Days At Peking" also star. It's tongue-in-cheek repartee are over the heads of most of the "X" generation that only can read enough to access information on the internet. If you've never read a book, don't bother seeing this movie--you won't get it. But if you remember: Kennedy, cocktail hour, the bomb, etc. you will understand and enjoy this movie.

jolter41 i saw this film"way back when" in '57 and my date & i were helpless laughing at it. i know it was panned even back then, both as a b'way show and later as a flick. stewart granger plays a totally naive tennis nut with a beautiful wife, ava gardner. he is totally oblivious to his pal, david niven's overt courting of gardner. one scene has niven & gardner playing a game and, at the game's end, they engage in a passionate kiss. the naive granger passes it off as "good, clean fun". he just can't see pal niven for what he's up to. another scene has the three at a table on the island they were stranded on, with granger again in total oblivion to gardner & niven playing tangle toes and trading double entendres at each other. granger finally wakes up and tries to win wife's attentions back. this picture is really worth seeing, in my book.

cimorene_fantasy A fun filled romp, full of silly if not sometimes cruel jokes. Not the best of movies, but definitely well worth watching. David Niven and Stewart Granger are their usual charming selves with Granger as an especially delightful and ingenious gentleman. Ava Gardner as wonderful as always, with such a delightful character that is absolutely iresistable. The story line is typical, but full of jocular surprises, especially concerning the unconventional relationships between Granger, Gardner and Niven.