Life with Father (1947)

Excellent but underrated film

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

If you watch this film because you adore the urbane and witty William Powell, you're going to be sorely disappointed. In this film he is a stodgy old tyrant (well, that may be overstating it a bit, but not much). So for me, this rather famous movie was rather disappointing. And it didn't end with Powell; I was equally disappointed with Irene Dunne. Oh, it's not their fault. It's just the nature of the characters they play here.The cast is interesting. Elizabeth Taylor is along as the female romantic interest for teenager Jimmy Lydon ("Henry! Henry Aldrich! Coming mother!"). Edmund Gwenn is here as a minister. Zazu Pitts has a small part. Martin Milner ("Route 66") plays one of the middle sons. And, there are a number of other fine character actors.Staid. That's the perfect word to describe this film. This film has its moments, but they are few and far between. And, usually I like this type of film.Ah well. Maybe it's just me. But I won't want to watch this again.

I have been a tremendous fan of this movie for many years. I discovered the movie version after I had seen a local stage production and it was an excellent transfer of the play to the screen. Until recently I had only seen it on TV first in black and white years ago and then in color on TCM. I like it so well I bought two of the DVD versions (I won't mention which) and as other reviewers have said they were horrible with washed out color, grainy images and sound that was not synchronized and barely understandable. I guess this is all you can reasonably expect for a movie that has some how slipped into the public domain and for which there is not much demand. However, while searching on Amazon I discovered a review for a new digitally remastered DVD that supposedly fixed all those problems. I ordered a copy and the review was correct. There is now an excellent DVD available from DigiComTV BarCode # 885444062681.

This film speaks to us today in modern day life and how far we have declined as a society. The power of our civilization rests on the bulwark and strength of family life. Since the decadence of the 60s and 70s we are facing economic ruin since our currency does not have gold anymore to back it up against the forthcoming imminent economic collapse that may come sooner than we think. Just look at gold and oil prices. There is no stability there. They are gauges indicating a fever pitch of troubles that lie ahead. Which leads me to William Powell. He was the Alan Greenspan of his household and he was representative of most households worth anything in 1883 New York. No credit and no electricity. Bills to be paid off at once. It was no accident that he was a Wall Street Privateer. If things were run today with the precision of his household the world would be in a lot better shape than it is. Yes, Irene Dunne, the mother, ran the household as she should. But it was the backbone of strength displayed by the "O Captain My Captain" of Clarence Day Sr (as told in Clarence Day Jr.'s story) that keeps everything financially above water. He had too hard a way of earning his money to have it squandered recklessly without accounting for every penny "which is what the household accounts are for." Liz Taylor is good as are all the characters. The tender moments of marital bliss expressed by his gift of a Tiffany diamond ring for his wife is beautifully rendered on screen like a "Moonlight Sonata." The religious theme of the mother endeavoring diligently to make sure that all of them get to heaven by ensuring the proper baptism of her husband reflects the truth of society at that time. That wealth was not a right or a privilege but was something that had to be earned through hard work and the right knowledge. The touch of Buck Ewing hitting a home run put a light on the "new" game of baseball and an early reference to baseball in heaven. ("Field of Dreams"). The way the father relates how he will organize a baseball team of their own in heaven before his son joins them up there shows the strong faith they had in the Christian afterlife. After all he was an "Episcopalian." I think this film portrays the late 19th Century in New York accurately and reflected positively what it took to run a decent and successful household. The time it was released in 1947 was right after WWII which was a time when people started to go back to church because of the horrors just recently endured. I fear it may take another depression and global conflict (only it will be worse this time) to get society back on track morally and to help us show respect for one another. This film hearkens to the way things "oughtta be." Great film.

In his third and final Oscar nomination, William Powell was nominated for playing the bellowing and lovable 19th century domestic tyrant Clarence Day, Sr. in Life With Father. If he had to lose I'm sure Powell was glad it was to his very good friend in real life Ronald Colman for A Double Life. Still with that strange flaming red hair on top of his familiar features, Powell imprints his own personality on the leading role of the longest running play on Broadway up to that time.Based on the recollections of Clarence Day, Jr. as played by Jimmy Lydon here, Life With Father ran for eight years on Broadway for 3447 performances. It was brought to the stage by Howard Lindsay and his two partners, writing partner Russell Crouse who adapted Day's work to the stage and life partner Dorothy Stickney who with her husband got their career roles on Broadway. The play ran from 1939 through 1947 taking America right through World War II. The time that it was written and presented to the public may account for its popularity as the public might just have wanted reassurance of American values at that critical point.As Lindsay and Stickney had no kind of movie box office, Warner Brothers decided to acquire William Powell for the lead and cast Irene Dunne as the wise mother who has learned just the right way to handle her husband and inevitably get what she wants. Powell is a man who thinks when all else has failed, he can bellow his way through any situation. My favorite line in the play is when he tries to hire a maid and that title quote is when he's asked for references.Warner paid a lot in loan outs for this film. Irene Dunne was not a contract employee of his studio and Elizabeth Taylor was also borrowed from MGM for the small, decorative part of a cousin that gets Jimmy Lydon and Martin Milner's hormones in an uproar. The part that Taylor plays was originated on Broadway by another future film star, Teresa Wright.Incidentally Martin Milner reminisced many years later about the film and said of all the boys and of course Powell, he was the only natural redhead among the lot.Edmund Gwenn fresh from an Oscar himself for Miracle on 34th Street plays the Episcopalian minister who is trying to get a large contribution from Powell for a new church. Their discussion is also a highlight of the play and the fact that Powell had never been baptized is also a subject of a lot of humor.Father still had life well into the Fifties with a television series adapted from the play that starred Leon Ames as dear old dad.The play, the film still have a lot of character in it.