RODNEY BOWCOCK: Here we have a movie told in flashback, as Julie Adams (Irene Dunne) thinks back on her meeting and marriage with her husband, Roger (Cary Grant). From the start as they meet, we are given the impression that this may be a light comedy of the sort that we know from Dunne and Grant. However that is not to be the case, as the couple is faced with malady after malady involving their desires to become parents and Roger’s attempts to become a successful smalltown newspaper operator. I went into this film without knowing much more about the plot of the film than this, and while I suspect that many of you have seen this picture, this may be a case where the less said is the better.
SAMANTHA GLASSER: Penny Serenade was one of the first classic movies recommended to me on Fan Forum, an old message board. It was the first time I ever saw a movie with Cary Grant. I've seen this movie many times since, and it stays fresh with each viewing. This time I gushed over the sweetness of the romance. The couple's "meet cute" is absolutely adorable, and perfectly paced. Roger (Grant) spots Julie (Irene Dunne) in the music shop through the window and wants to meet her. He goes inside but another clerk offers to help him. He keeps trying to find a reason to talk to her until finally he just slips over to her counter and starts chatting. He stays all day, getting to know her and buying records, that she soon discovers he has no way to play because he doesn't have a player. "Well, why on earth did you buy 27--?" He just gives her a pointed look.
Another favorite scene is when Roger has to board a train to leave his new wife for an overseas job. She doesn't want to leave him, and he suggest she get on the train to savor their last few minutes before they depart. She never makes it off the train. The scene is perfectly executed, suggestive without being vulgar, and highly romantic.
RB: These are lovely scenes and help you to feel a connection to the couple that becomes critical to the film as later you need to sympathize with them as they suffer a seemingly endless series of setbacks and misfortune. After this point, even when things are going well, you find yourself waiting for the other shoe to drop, knowing that it can’t last long.
SG: The scenes with the new baby came to my mind several times when I had a newborn at home. My experience was less hysterical than Roger and Julie's, maybe because I had more time to prepare than they did, but I took the advice imparted that babies are resilient and that everyone has to change a diaper for the very first time. I love that Applejack (Edgar Buchanan), the tobacco chewing, swearing printman is the one who gently and swiftly bathes the baby. He reminds me of Andy Devine without the foghorn. He doesn't pop up in movies as frequently as Devine, but whenever I see Applejack in something else it always makes me smile.
RB: Buchanan’s portrayal of Applejack is easily my favorite character in the movie and provides much needed lightness. I love how he is seemingly gruff and rough around the edges but handles the baby with an irresistible kindness and nuance. He probably first came upon my radar when I was a kid and he was Uncle Billy on Leave It To Beaver. He always makes me smile there as well.
SG: Beulah Bondi is notable as the head of the orphanage. Martha Cheavens deserves high praise for taking an adversarial character and giving her depth and nuance, and Morrie Ryskind for adapting her for the screen. (I devoured a Cheavens novel called Crosswinds this year, a wonderful study of a small town with great characters including a newspaperman. She also wrote the basis for the film Sunday Dinner With a Soldier.) Bondi plays the role with grit, but allows herself to soften periodically and she becomes quite endearing. I particularly love her reaction to seeing the child's bedroom.
RB: Eagle eyed viewers can spot more than a few Columbia contract players in the proceedings. Ann Doran gets a rare credited role in a film that isn’t a B or a short as Dotty, who works in the record shop with Julie. Dorothy Adams (wife of Byron Foulger) shows up, as does silent comedian Billy Bevan (although I couldn’t find him). I couldn’t find Grady Sutton either, but he’s here (I suspect I sneezed and missed him). Since this is a Columbia movie, you’d be wise to bet that Fred “Snowflake” Toones is going to appear, and he does. If you need a distraction from all of the sadness, just look for the character actors. It worked for me.
SG: I love the couple's little apartment over the newspaper offices. It is small and cozy, a perfect starter home. The detail that the kitchen slider sticks, which causes the window to slam shut, is minor but wonderful because it gives character to the home. I also admired their fancy double bed with the ornate wood carvings.
RB: It’s a cute little home and adds humanity to the characters. The apartment is almost a character in the film itself.
SG: The music selections are great too. I might be one of the few modern viewers who first heard "You Were Meant For Me" in this film and not Singin' in the Rain. I love the concept of telling the story of the marriage through music. I tie events strongly in my memory to songs, and anyone who does that same can relate and curate their own playlist.
RB: Music plays a big role in this movie and like you I related to this very much as music plays such a role in my life. It’s perfectly logical to me that one would relate to past events in their lives via the songs that were playing at the time.
SG: The Christmas sequence comes when Trina is school-aged and she gets picked to sing the echo behind the scenes of the nativity play. She is proud of her role, even though her parents are somewhat disappointed that they won't see her on stage. Trina assures them that next year, she will be old enough to play an angel. Watching this play unfold, with Roger and Julie reacting in the audience, feels like watching my own child doing something special independently. I swelled with pride, and then the maternal need to comfort and reassure her kicked in when she cried over her perceived mistake.
RB: I agree completely. I was as proud of Trina as she was of herself as the played the echo in the play, and I was completely sympathetic to her as she slipped up (and I still maintain it wasn’t that big of a deal).
SG: Grant was nominated for an Oscar for this film, but he lost to Gary Cooper for Sergeant York. Although I love this movie and Grant is a legendary star, I agree with the Academy on this choice. Strangely enough, Sergeant York was also among the first old movies I watched when I began seeking them out in high school.
RB: In her biography, Irene Dunne said that Grant had to be persuaded into the big courtroom scene which likely earned him his nomination as he didn’t care for scenes where he had to open up and show great emotion. It’s a very moving moment of the film.
SG: If you're interested in hearing different actors in these roles, be sure to track down Lux Radio Theatre from April 27, 1942 which stars real-life couple Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck.
RB: There was also a 1944 adaptation on Lux with Dunne reprising her role. Grant was replaced by Joseph Cotton. If you want some behind the scenes flavor, there is even a rehearsal recording of this broadcast that exists.
SG: To advertise the film, exhibitors in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania handed out aluminum disks imprinted with information about the movie with a lucky penny in the middle. In Cumberland, Massachusetts the cashiers at the box office dispensed change in an envelope that said, "Don't Forget the Pennies and Don't Forget to See Penny Serenade."
RB: In Fulton KY, a fishbowl was filled with pennies in the lobby and patrons would guess how many were in the bowl in an attempt to win free passes to the film. These promotional tactics, combined with the posters make you think that you’re going to see a comedy or a farse, along the lines of The Awful Truth, which doubtlessly shocked some people. Scott Eyman’s Cary Grant bio relates a story told by Dunne that confirms this theory. Seems that Dunne “went to a preview of the film. She slipped in after the lights went down and when the credits came on, a woman behind her said ‘Oh, another Cary Grant-Irene Dunne comedy’. By the halfway point, the woman and her date were both blubbering”.
SG: The movie fell into the public domain and there are a lot of poor-quality versions available including an awful colorized version on one of the streaming websites. Apparently, some of them are missing the courtroom scene. I have a Leisure Entertainment disk that uses a decent print.
RB: My copy came from an outfit called Platinum Entertainment and it looks like garbage and runs about five minutes short (I assume that the courtroom scene is missing). I found a nice looking copy on Prime in the appropriate monochrome. I would guess that it’s a rip of the Olive Films blu-ray that came out several years ago.
SG: A press screening was held on April 15, 1941. Edward Greif for Motion Picture Daily wrote, "An audience of exhibitors and the press gathered at the Astor for the showing rocked with hearty laughter during the lighter moments and gave the picture whole-hearted applause at the end."
Wolfe Kaufman for Modern Screen called the film, "a simple, dramatic affair with heart-tug. In fact, those of you gals who enjoy a good cry once in a while had better take your hankies along... You believe it all, every second of the way, and become part and parcel of the lovable family."
The Film Daily reviewer said, "Director-Producer George Stevens deserves due praise for his splendid job. His directorial job leaves nothing to be desired, there are intimate touches every place that give you a jolt, the characters move across the screen in understandable, warmly human portrayals, and the story itself moves smoothly from romance to tragedy to comedy and then again through the whole gamut of emotions without a single false note to mar its perfection."
Motion Picture Reviews said, "The film is a little long, the earlier sequences might have been judiciously shortened, but when the action is concerned with the family relationships, there is no flaw." The reviewer compared Penny Serenade to Julien Duvivier's film Un Carnet de Bal.
RB: I’ve typically found when researching the neighborhood theater reviews for bigger pictures, it’s not unusual to come across reviews that complain that the small town audiences can’t relate to that sort of film. There was no chance of that happening with this one. “Played a week and a half…Pictures like this keep people coming to the theater” is a typical comment, this one from Robert Berezin of the Elgin Theatre in Ottawa Ontario.
SG: Although the heartache depicted on the screen doesn't make this an ideal movie for frequent viewing, it is executed with precision and emotion. Four stars.
RB: Occasionally, I see a movie that is so well executed and moving that while I must concede that it is a great film, I never want to see it again. For me, I got so wrapped up in the lives of these characters and the sadness that enveloped them much of the picture that while it is definitely a four star film, it is not one that I am anxious to revisit.
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