A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Spoilers. Observations. Opinions.Excellent. Always wondered what this film was all about. It is about a poverty-stricken tenement family, counting pennies against disaster.The father is James Dunn, whom I remember as being filmic father of Shirley Temple. He could dance, and was a pilot in one of the Shirley films. He sings, here.The daughter starts off with some rather smart alecky conversation. I am thinking: what a brat. At same time period in real life, M. O'Brien, another child actress, is made a great deal of; yet, in this film, is a young actress I never heard of. The daughter grows to be more sympathetic, though selfish in places.The son is also a brat, but fairly nice, deep down. Mom, I'm hungry. Make it yourself, you dolt. Boys need to learn to cook and prepare meals, too. Er, that was later to happen in American society. In turn of twentieth century America, poor, backward families were stereotypically waited on hand-and-foot by the mother.The mother is self-sacrificing. She scrubs floors, at the expense of her personal health. How does she become expecting-with-child from her alcoholic, distant husband? It's offscreen, however. Maybe the police officer paid her an early visit. Remember, he wants to adopt the new baby. Hubba-hubba.There's a lot of Irish music played in this film, with offscreen choir singing Christmas carols. Christianity reigns, but the real turn of twentieth century America was made up of several other religions.This family is recently immigrant, and fairly illiterate, to boot. The father is uneducated, neer-do-well drunk. He sings for nickels and dimes at events few and far between, and he is never good enough to get a regular singer's job.Big graduation? Age 12 or so? End of education for second-third generation immigrants? Sheesh. What a life. Children working in a bar? Maybe child labor laws had not kicked in yet.The grandmother obviously had no education. She wanted the children to aspire to the freedom found in America. She wanted them to keep learning.Joan Blondell. I was hoping she and James Dunn would go into a vaudeville-type song and dance routine. It didn't happen.Food and Drug Act early twentieth century. Muckrakers. Journalistic investigators of filthy practices, especially in the meat packing industry (rats, anyone?) I saw the kid in this movie handling meat in the tavern/bar, with his bare hands. He even helped himself to some of the meats. No one thought anything of it. He wasn't shown washing his dirty mitts.Critiques: extremely poor family, but expensive clothes at the funeral. Expensive carriage with horses. Funerals are expensive. Children had beautiful clothes for graduation day, and the mother looked spectacular that day. The mother didn't die of fever or in childbirth, and all of a sudden she no longer looks poverty-stricken.I am a degreed historian, film critic and movie reviewer. I enjoy studying about the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, which was a time period in America from about 1880s until before World War One. Immigration was huge, many were poverty-stricken and uneducated, and crowded into New York area tenements as shown in this film.

This classic movie, based on Betty Smith's autobiographical novel, was Elia Kazan's directorial debut. Though the entire cast was wonderful, James Dunn won a well-deserved Oscar, here, for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.Since this story is about a poor family in greater New York City around the turn of the century, I sometimes get it mixed up with that of George Stevens' I Remember Mama. However, any momentary confusion is soon rectified when I recall the cast and the character difference between the two maternal figures (Irene Dunne in I Remember Mama and Dorothy McGuire in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. McGuire was great at playing 'hard' and serious characters, as she later did in Kazan's Gentleman's Agreement and Mann's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960).To me, this is one of those many priceless movies in which life is viewed from a child's point of view (how they see--and feel--things that are going on around them and within the family. The protagonist, here, is 12 or 13 year-old Francie Nolan (Peggy Ann Garner). Her acting may be a little over-sentimental, but I think her role may have called for it. On the other hand, Ted Donaldson is refreshingly realistic as her younger brother, Neeley.The Nolan family is poor and has learned to live by all of the cost- savings means humanly possible. For example, the two children go to a cheaper school and work on Saturdays as 'rag pickers,' gathering trash on the streets and selling it to the neighborhood junk man. On Christmas Eve, they wait until all of the other Christmas trees have been sold and then gather at the tree lot as the vendor throws his leftover trees to anyone whom can catch them.The children's mother, Katie Nolan (Dorothy McGuire), works hard doing domestic work, cutting corners, and being the disciplinarian of the family so they can survive. As a result, those around her often see her as 'hard.' Her husband, Johnny Nolan, aka 'The Brooklyn Thrush' (James Dunn), works at night as a singing waiter for a small salary--but mainly for tips. He is a pipe dreamer, a romantic, and a drunk. Everyone in the neighborhood, including the local policeman, Officer McShane (Lloyd Nolan), knows it—but they all love him anyway--and learn to call him 'sick' when he comes home drunk. Johnny fills Francie's head full of fanciful dreams about being discovered by an impresario and telling her what he will do for the family when he is discovered and 'his ship comes in.' When Francie dreams of going to a better school down the block, her father helps her get into it by making up an address that is within the school district.Katie's fun-loving sister, Aunt Sissy (Joan Blondell), often comes to visit and often has a new husband—'Aunt Sissy has gone and done it again.' She, too, wants to see that the children are not too hardened by Katie and that they get to enjoy their life. Although everyone wants Francie to be protected from life's hardships, soon must see things as they are.

In the early 1900s, the Nolans, a poor Brooklyn tenement family, fight not only to survive, but also to improve their lives. The studious Francie worships her father, waiter and aspiring singer Johnny, despite him being an alcoholic and a pipe dreamer. With a strong temper, mother Katie holds the family together, including a flirtatious and impetuous aunt. Dorothy McGuire is a perfect mother who keeps her family together, but loses and regains some humanity in the process. She was an underrated actress in her time, always gave great performances. Peggy Ann Garner in one of the best child performances I have seen as an intelligent and caring daughter. What an incredible and moving film; made me cry many times while watching girl Francie reverencing her father and helping out her mother. A film worth seeing more than once.

Francie (Peggy Ann Garner) is a plucky streetwise teen living in the tough Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn with her brother Neeley, her hard working mom Katie Nolan (Dorothy McGuire) and her alcoholic lovable loser father Johnny Nolan (James Dunn). Katie's sister Sissy (Joan Blondell) is a sassy modern woman who is causing scandal with her third marriage and Katie cuts off contact with her. New beat cop Officer McShane is infatuated with Sissy. The landlord is cutting back a tree in the courtyard. Francie wants to go to a better school and her father needs to find a better paying job.Peggy Ann Garner is a compelling child actress. She's really great in this. And Dorothy McGuire is a terrific lead. It's a touching sentimental melodrama and a good tear jerker. It's the first directorial feature of Elia Kazan. The writers took possibly unwieldy material and adapted it perfectly onto the big screen.