jacobs-greenwood
Directed by Garson Kanin, with a screenplay by Norman Krasna, this above average romantic comedy earned Felix Jackson his only Oscar nomination (Original Story).Polly Parrish (Ginger Rogers) was hired as a seasonal employee by the (John) Merlin (Charles Coburn) department store. However, the three week Christmas sales period has ended and Polly receives her termination notice on Christmas eve morning. During her lunch break, she visits an employment agency and, on the way back, sees a woman leaving a baby on the steps of a foundling agency. After confronting the woman who hurries away, Polly decides to carry the infant inside so that it doesn't fall down the steps. After giving her name and place of employment, Polly explains what happened, but the agency's employees are dubious. Reading their expressions, Polly insists that the baby is not hers and rushes out. Back at Merlin's, Polly is approached by a store inventory clerk, Freddie Miller (Frank Albertson), who offers her half of a sure $50 prize at a dance contest that night if she'd only agree to be his partner. Needing the money, she agrees.The foundling agency's investigator (Ernest Truex) visits Merlin's and discovers that Polly has just been let go. So he calls on the store's management and gets a meeting with David Merlin (David Niven), who usually shows up late or infrequently at work due to his social life. The investigator believes that Polly abandoned "her" child because she'd lost her job and David, who's instantly concerned, summons her to his office. She is surprised to learn that her job has been restored and that she's to receive a $5/week raise retroactively. She is also promised a Christmas gift, which she's to receive later. At her apartment that evening, the investigator arrives with her 'package', the baby. He isn't happy about her attitude, she still insists it isn't hers and doesn't want it, but is able to leave without taking the baby with him after he explains the baby is the reason she'd gotten her job back. When Freddie arrives, Polly has an idea - on the way to the dance contest, she has him drive her by the Merlin home. Freddie then overhears her as she leaves it with the Merlin's butler (E.E. Clive) and says "it's his responsibility". Naturally, Freddie gets the wrong idea.After Polly departs, David learns from the butler what transpired. He picks up the baby and the two of them follow Freddie and Polly to the dance contest. However, David is soon thrown out of the dance hall for his behavior while Freddie and Polly are disappointed to win the contest, getting a trophy instead of the $50 they needed. Freddie takes Polly home and tries to make advances while David waits inside with the baby. Before he departs, Freddie's belief that David is the father of the baby is solidified. After a discussion of her circumstances with David, Polly decides to admit that the baby is hers and accept the responsibility for raising it. The 'playboy' seems to grow up a little too; he'll help her with Johnnie. After David leaves, Polly's landlord Mrs. Weiss (Ferike Boros) tells Polly that she would be happy to help by taking the baby while Polly works.The next day, Freddie asks Polly to "wink, wink, use her influence" to get him a better job as a floor manager. Without Polly doing anything, Freddie is promoted within minutes after he sees David visiting Polly's sales counter, where she sells Donald Duck toys. Later, David shows up at Polly's apartment to help her with the baby. He's brought a book from some expert and proceeds to read some nonsense about how to feed it. He also breaks a toy duck, but promises to return it for a replacement the next day. Polly laughs, telling him that you can't return anything at Merlin's. As the executive second only to his father, David insists that he can. But the next day, dressed incognito, David learns otherwise. Upset, he goes to the sales counter where he breaks several of the ducks before he puts a working one in his pocket. Of course, Freddie sees this and tackles him before he sees who he's just accosted. Naturally, David demotes him back to his old job.For revenge, Freddie decides to write a note to David's father, telling him he's a grandfather. So, John has his chauffeur follow David, who joins Polly and Johnnie at the park. The previous evening, New Year's Eve, David had been stood up by his girlfriend Louise (June Wilkins); he'd been neglecting while helping Polly. David finds a replacement date in Polly. While Mrs. Weiss watched Johnnie, Polly and David had a wonderful evening together. At the stroke of midnight, they shared their first kiss, a particularly long one. The next day in the park, John finds them. He sees a resemblance and learns the baby's name is Johnnie which, in his mind, confirms that he's holding his grandson. After John's left, Polly and David simultaneously figure out why John had been teary eyed. David chases after his father while Polly laughs that he is in the same predicament that she was regarding the baby's mistaken parentage.When Polly learns from David that his father will use lawyers to gain custody of Johnnie, she discusses it with Mrs. Weiss who suggests that her son Jerome (Leonard Penn) pretend to be the father. Meanwhile, David has tracked down Freddie and convinces him to do the same. Hence, at the Merlin home, right after Polly and Jerome have all but convinced John that the baby is theirs, David arrives with Freddie to ruin the ruse. Eventually all is resolved as David proposes to Polly and they 'admit' to his father that the baby is his.Later remade as the musical Bundle of Joy (1956).
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A delightful Romantic Comedy with its non-sticky romance embedded nonchalantly within one of the funniest comedies that I've ever seen is BACHELOR MOTHER. Actually, outside of the best of the Marx Brothers, and maybe THE AWFUL TRUTH, I can't think of a more consistently funny movie. Perhaps not the best comedy ever made (I doubt that it really has very much to say about unwed motherhood, for example, and any other deeper meanings remain, shall we say, not especially evident), but it's close to a perfect example of its kind and the wonder is that it's not far better remembered. Perhaps history has simply lost it among the many excellent and more ambitious movies of 1939. BACHELOR MOTHER didn't go unnoticed at the time, it was both RKO's biggest hit of the year and Hollywood's most popular comedy. And maybe this pure vehicle for Ginger Rogers (she hadn't had many up to this point in her career. Only VIVACIOUS LADY and PROFESSIONAL SWEETHEART come to mind) has been obscured by her continuing fame as Fred Astaire's dancing partner. If so, it's a shame. BACHELOR MOTHER simply begs rediscovery as a forgotten Holiday Classic. The story begins on Christmas Eve and ends on New Year's Day and includes the most charming and funny and touching New Year's Eve sequence that you could ever imagine.1937-38 had brought on a second leg of the Depression with unemployment again breaching the 20% mark, so Polly Parrish's (Ginger Rogers') predicament at the beginning of the film (ironically laid off immediately after being wished a "very Merry Christmas" by the big boss, Charles Coburn) was an all-too-realistic plot device for its audience. It's hinted without ever quite being said that Polly is a recent orphan herself ("There's no one to go back to," she says when her friend suggests that she might return home), establishing a sympathetic parallel between her and the infant with whom she'll soon be unwillingly bonded. For Polly is no more a willing volunteer for motherhood than you or I would be in similar circumstances, but the consequences for a single girl unemployed in New York City in 1939 were ominous, indeed. So she makes lemonade out of lemons and winds up Cinderella at the ball in the finest screwball tradition. Ginger's deadpan approach to Polly's sentimental journey provides just the touch of astringency needed. Neither her growing love for the baby nor for that bigger baby (David) ever grows the least bit gooey.Within the scenes, Garson Kanin's direction is relatively staid and relaxed, as befitting a movie about a mother and child, but the scenes themselves rush forward breathlessly, its set-pieces practically falling one on top of another: David's smug satisfaction at reuniting 'mother and child'; the dance contest at the Pink Slipper; the feeding lessons according to 'Dr. Eaglefoot, or Eagleface, or whatever his name is"; the entire New Year's Eve sequence, "Schmorgen!"; "I don't care who the father is, I'm the grandfather!", etc. Just typing it all out brings a smile to my face.This was Ginger Rogers' first film after the series with Fred Astaire had ended at RKO and she was never better (often different, but never better). If her star wasn't secure before BACHELOR MOTHER, it certainly was afterwards. And if anything, BACHELOR MOTHER was an even more important film for David Niven, for though he wasn't the one to carry the movie, this was probably his most important role to date. He'd been largely a supporting actor to this point, notably in serious movies (THE DAWN PATROL, WUTHERING HEIGHTS), but BACHELOR MOTHER proved him a natural both for comedy and romance. For Charles Coburn, BACHELOR MOTHER was simply one more triumph in what was still relatively early in his brilliant movie career.Ironically, Ginger Rogers didn't like the script and producer Pandro Berman, who must have had plenty of confidence in the project, literally had to force her to do the picture. She did seem to enjoy the experience of working on it once she got to the set, however, and established lifelong friendships with Niven and director Kanin. I suspect that most actors aren't the best judges of what projects are best for them, but it's fitting that a film as delightful as BACHELOR MOTHER worked out so well for everyone involved.
