bkoganbing
This rather dated comedy involves young Priscilla Lane going unchaperoned to
spend a weekend at a lake cabin with Jeffrey Lynn before he goes off to Belgium
for a career change and a bit of excitement. It got all the censor's hackles up
because the two at the moment are not intending to be married. Today it wouldn't raise a blip.I'm in agreement with the other reviewer who said there's a whole lot of talking going on. Not as much as in one of Bette Davis's worst films Winter
Meeting, still a lot. Today the young folk would be getting it on.Lane and her grandmother May Robson are having a great old time pointing
out to mama Fay Bainter that back in the day she was a frisky young thing
herself, all that suffragette activity etc. Fay reacts like a mom, but she's
hoisted on her own petard by her past.Ian Hunter plays dad and he's out sailing on Long Island sound while all this
is going on. When he arrives on the scene this pillar of the community proves
singularly ineffectual. His sister Genevieve Tobin and house guest Roland
Young function as kibitzers. Hard to believe back in the day that Yes My Darling Daughter got the Legion of
Decency in such a snit. The play by Mark Reed ran for 405 performances with a cast I'm sure you mostly never heard of. Just noting the Broadway cast list
you can see how the play was expanded a bit for the screen.One has to wonder that in 1939 those who saw Yes My Darling Daughter had to wonder what happens to all the characters the following year when the
Nazis march into Belgium. It certainly had me wondering.This is a most dated but amusing film.
barrymn1
It's clear that Warners was attempting to repeat the same success they had with "Four Daughters" right down to casting a number of the same actors. Rolland Young and Fay Bainter (along with the wonderful May Robson) are among my favorite character actors of the era.Priscilla Lane is just fine, but Jeffrey Lynn really isn't a particular good actor. Yes, he was fine in "All This and Heaven Too", but he's dull as dishwater in "A Letter to Three Wives". Joseph Mankiewicz referred to him as a "leaner" - a weak actor. He was right.All in all, it's a very watchable Warners programmer of the late 1930's. I can think better ways to waste my time.
reelguy2
Jeffrey Lynn gets a real bum rap by one reviewer on this site. He has an impossible part to play here, in which he's subjected to Priscilla Lane's endless platitudinous chatter. It's certainly refreshing to see a liberated woman in an old movie, but Lane's character is positively emasculating. Under the circumstances, Lynn does very well. Based on a popular play, this film was considered racy in 1939. Seen today, it's so innocuous, it's almost offensive! Needless to say, Lane retains her virginity even though she goes away for the weekend with boyfriend Lynn.Forget the sociological implications, however, and you have a reasonably witty entertainment, successfully "opened up" from its stage origins.
Randy_D
While this story of an unmarried couple's weekend together is obviously tame by today's standards, Yes, My Darling Daughter does have a moment or two that is a bit on the racier side. Well, at least for the time it was made.Led by the beautiful and unfairly underrated 'Lane, Priscilla' (qv), this movie has a good ensemble cast, with maybe the exception of Jeffrey Lynn.While Lynn has been likable in his other movies with Priscilla Lane, i. e. _Four Daughters (1938)_ (qv) and _Roaring Twenties, The (1939)_ (qv), he doesn't come across as the most likeable character. Or the brightest, either. In other words, if Priscilla Lane asked me to spend a weekend with her, platonic or otherwise, I think I would show a little more enthusiasm than he did!Anyway, Yes, My Darling Daughter is worth watching, thanks in no small part to the aforementioned Miss Lane.