Father Goose is a 1964 American Technicolor romantic comedy film set in World War II, starring Cary Grant, Leslie Caron and Trevor Howard.

While the Royal Australian Navy evacuates Salamaua, Papua New Guinea, in February 1942[4] ahead of a Japanese invasion, Commander Frank Houghton coerces an old friend, American beachcomber Walter Eckland, into becoming a coast watcher for the Allies.

To motivate the alcoholic Eckland, Houghton had his crew hide bottles of Scotch whisky around the island, rewarding each confirmed aircraft sighting with directions to one.

One by one, he befriends the girls (four British, two French, and an Australian), becoming pals with the outgoing tomboyish "Harry" and even getting the youngest, traumatized mute since being separated from her parents to speak again.

When the girls frantically report that Freneau has been bitten by a snake and Houghton confirms that all on the island are deadly venomous, Eckland commences a vigil over her.

When she passes out Eckland mistakenly believes she has succumbed (and taken with her solemn secrets he revealed in their reverie), only to learn she'd merely been pricked by a thorny stick that just looked like a snake.

Ordering Freneau and the girls into his dinghy, Eckland heads out to sea in his newly repaired cruiser in the opposite direction to draw the Japanese away.

Originally the film was going to be a "small British picture" directed by Cy Enfield, who like Tarloff was an American blacklistee living in England.

[8] In its contemporary review, Variety was positive: "Cary Grant comes up with an about-face change of character.... [He] plays an unshaven bum addicted to tippling and tattered attire, a long way from the suave figure he usually projects but affording him opportunity for nutty characterization.

Leslie Caron and Trevor Howard are valuable assists to plottage...."[9] Bosley Crowther, The New York Times critic, considered it "a cheerfully fanciful fable" and "some harmless entertainment".

"[10] S. H. Barnett, Peter Stone, and Frank Tarloff won the Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay, which was written directly for the screen.