Saturday’s Children
Directed by Vincent Sherman
Written by Julias J. and Philip G. Epstein from a play by Maxwell Anderson
1940/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go, Friday’s child is loving and giving, Saturday’s child works hard for his living, And the child that is born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay. — old Scottish verse
Next up in the John Garfield retrospective on the Criterion Channel was another story of a couple navigating through the Great Depression.
Rims Rosson (Garfield) is a working man with big dreams. He has a thousand inventions in his head. The one that sounds most promising is to turn hemp into silk. He has a job offer to go to the Philippines to test his theory out.
He is also sweethearts with Bobby Halevy (Anne Shirley). She dreads the departure of Rims. Her aunt advises her on the way to catch a husband through various “tricks”. The tricks work and Rims marries Bobby.
They make do on very little money. Finally, Rims receives a letter renewing his job offer in the Philippines but telling him they cannot raise the salary so he can afford to take his wife. Bobby intercepts the letter and destroys it. The truth comes out about a number of things. Can this marriage survive? With Claude Rains as Garfield’s father-in-law, the same relationship the actors had in “Four Daughters” and “Daughters Courageous”.
Garfield is always good. Claude Rains was not cut out to play avuncular father figures. That’s about all I can say for the movie. It’s watchable but formulaic. I was surprised to find out that the writers were the Epstein Brothers who did such an iconic job on Casablanca (1943).
