Life with Father
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Donald Ogden Stewart from the play Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse based on a memoir by Clarence Day
1947/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Miss Wiggins: Sir, before I can let any girl go from this establishment, I must know the character of the home in which she will be employed.
Father: Madam, *I* am the character of my home.[/box]
Dated sexual politics aside, this is an endearing domestic comedy with one of William Powell’s best performances.
Clarence Day Sr. (Powell) is a wealthy stockbroker. The man is all bluster, insisting on running every aspect of his household on a business basis and terrorizing the staff. His wife Vinnie (Irene Dunne) spends much of her time trying to smooth things for him. But she definitely has figured out how to get her own way. One of her methods to avoid arguments over her expenditures is through a kind of arithmetic that defies logic and leaves her husband helpless. Others stratagems nclude tears and a kind of charming passive aggression.
The Days have four sons. One day, Vinnie’s cousin (Zasu Pitts) comes to visit with a teenage protege Mary (Elizabeth Taylor). Clarence Jr. (Jimmy Lydon) is knocked for a loop by the young beauty. She likes him too but they soon discover that they go to different churches. Mary is Methodist and the Days are Episcopalians. Well, Vinnie and the children are faithful but Clarence is a very reluctant churchgoer who refuses to kneel. It soon develops that Clarence Sr. has never been baptized. Vinnie is horrified. Much of the story is devoted to her plots to get the situation rectified.
Other episodes include Clarence Jr.’s inability to court Mary in his father’s old suit and the boys’ money making scheme to sell a rather dodgy patent medicine door-to-door. With Edmund Gwenn as the local Episcopal priest.
My description does not make the movie sound as frothy and funny as it is. The Life with Father plot is the prototype for several TV sitcoms of the 50’s and 60’s but the original far surpasses any of its successors in its execution. Powell was never better than in this role, which is as far as could be imagined from the suave Nick Charles. He and Dunne have fantastic chemistry.
The film is in the public domain and I have only ever seen in it in a faded print with iffy sound quality. This deserves a restoration on a proper DVD.
Life with Father was nominated for Academy Awards in following categories: Best Actor; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.
Trailer
