This week I selected another film that takes place in or around the holiday season. Bachelor Mother (1939) starts Ginger Rogers and David Niven is a nice lighthearted romantic comedy and marks one of the first film post-Astaire outing for Rogers.
SYNOPSIS
In a case of mistaken identity, Polly Parrish (Rogers) first sees a stranger leaving a baby on the steps of an orphanage. Fearing for the safety of the abandoned baby, Polly picks it up as the orphanage door opens. Of course she is assumed to be the mother, which gets her her job back as a result of management’s sympathy to her “plight” as an unwed mother.
David Niven is his usual urbane self (with playboy tendencies) and Charles Coburn (as J.B. Merlin) has many scene-stealing moments as his father and owner of the department store at the center of the story.
Let me know if you have seen this film in the comments section below. Also be sure to check out Todd Mason’s blog Sweet Freedom for more overlooked titles.
You know, aside from the Astaire musicals, I’ve managed to miss most of Rogers’s work over the decades…and haven’t sat and watched an Astaire/Rogers musical for decades, either…I’ve seen GR in films, but very few of the ones built around her or her characters.
Todd Mason recently posted..FFBradbury: Sturgeon, Brackett, Bloch; Bradbury; Knight, Matheson, Beaumont, King…some notes about RB’s mentors, peers, legacy
You know what, she actually exceeded my expectations as an actress. There are a few non musical films she featured in that I liked. Most notably Billy Wilder’s “The Major and the Minor.” Great scene-stealing moments from Robert Benchley too 🙂
I think I have seen this but I have a memory of Debbie Reynold playing in it. I wonder if it was remade. Have to check it out.
Yep, BUNDLE OF JOY.
Correcto-mundo! 🙂