It wasn't until 1932 that Leach went to Hollywood signed a contract and refashioned himself as

It wasn't until 1932 that Leach went to Hollywood, signed a contract and refashioned himself as Cary Grant. Pitched straight into the heyday of Hollywood romantic comedies, Grant immediately found his metier. Trading wit with feisty female stars such as Mae West and Katharine Hepburn, he politely allowed himself to be chastised, before deftly pinning down his prey. Critic Pauline Kael has called him "the greatest sexual stooge the screen has ever known", but as David Thomson argues, Grant's allure was more complex. "There is a light and dark side to him, but, whichever is dominant, the other creeps into view."Grant combined a disingenuous charm with malice, flirtation with misogyny.

In His Girl Friday, the star is sunny side up, but Hitchcock brilliantly exploited Grant's magnetic menace in thrillers such as Suspicion.Off screen, the "great dame hunter" of An Affair To Remember confessed to being afraid of women and prone to depression. Although married four times, there were rumours that he was gay Such contradictions could have been destructive. But unlike studio victims such as Garland, Grant took control of his invented self.After an initial signing with Paramount, Grant eschewed studios and cut his own deals. Archie Leach was fed into Cary Grant, enriching the star with a fascinating ambiguity. But what of the the man himself? "I pretended to be a certain kind of man on screen and I became that man in life," said Grant, "and what's wrong with that?" What's wrong with being Cary Grant? Watching His Girl Friday, you have to think, not much..

Why is it that race movies always seem stuck in a time-warp? Why, unlike other political genres, do they always represent racism either in crudely comic or agitprop terms? After the small- screen beating of Rodney King, there can be little doubt that America's melting pot is in need of repair; that in the land of opportunity, some are more equal than others. However, on the big screen, subtle investigations of this subject are thin on the ground. After the early days of totemic figures such as Sidney Poitier and crossover wiseacres such as Richard Pryor, black stars are beginning to be cast more diversely, but (Spike Lee apart) the majority of movies are made by, and aimed at, whites. This may explain the need to caricature serious issues which many black people face every day. White Man's Burden is the latest example of the reductive way in which the politics of colour are packaged up as simple- minded entertainment. The film simply turns American society inside-out, with complacent black fat-cats (like Harry Belafonte) ruling over hardworking but downtrodden whites (like John Travolta). The film follows in the footsteps of comedies such as Melvin Van Peebles's Watermelon Man, True Identity and Soul Man, essentially colour-coded flicks, which see their protagonists blacking or whiting up to have a little fun with stereotypes. (Though a poor film, True Identity confronts the caste system of casting - Lenny Henry's actor changes pigment to extend his range beyond movies like Uptown Harlem Pimps on Crack).These are films that explore race issues with about the same intellectual vigour as Tootsie and Mrs Doubtfire probed gender.

At first glance, White Man's Burden goes beyond such superficial treatment by extending the role-swap metaphor to the whole of society. All the more disappointing, then, when it offers up the same old reactionary stereotypes.Isn't it time for mainstream cinema's handling of racism to incorporate a hint of ambiguous realism? For a film which doesn't deal in truisms; a film that isn't quite so, well, black and white?Liese Spencer. Over hyped, over successful and over here, Independence Day (12, see above) 20th Century Fox, 10 Feb, pounds 12.99, will no doubt blow all other retail releases out of the water this week with its soulless tale of invading aliens. Last summer, trailers showing a giant saucer zapping the White House were enough to get audiences into cinemas, only to find that they had already seen the best bit. If you are one of the few people who weren't disappointed, you can join the ranks of rental malcontents by watching the video at home. But note, this plotless load of SFX relies on spectacle, so if you don't own a 10ft screen, it's not worth the trouble. If it's effects you're after, you'd do far better to invest in A Chinese Ghost Story (15), Columbia/TriStar, 10 Feb, pounds 12.99, a fantastic and bizarrely beautiful thriller from Hong Kong.