DARLING, HOW COULD YOU! (1951)

James M. Barrie’s enchanting play, an earth-bound addendum to his PETER PAN, think the Further Misadventures of The Darling Family.  Called the Greys here, the play ALICE SIT BY THE FIRE*, it’s the same setup of absented parents, older teen daughter, grammar school son, toddler and fussy nanny.  But where Peter Pan flies into the nursery unaware a generation has passed since his last visit, now it’s the parents who’ve been out of touch, not for a night out as in PAN, but for five years in India, which seems like a generation to the children.  And if Dad instinctively stumbles his way back into their hearts, Mom trips up at every opportunity, distancing herself from every one, even the dog.  (A real dog this time, not PAN’s ‘Nana.’)  The fun comes in watching Barrie fix the broken family thru farcical misunderstanding, a nonexistent romantic mixup that has the daughter, with life-lessons learned strictly off stage plays with melodramatic rifts of scandal & infidelity*, trying to save Mother from marital disgrace, taking her place on an assignation with some supposed lover.  (In its 1905 B’way premiere, Ethel Barrymore was Mother & brother John a very confused ‘lover.’)  This film adaptation, by Dodie Smith of 101 DALMATIANS fame, moves the action from London to Boston, the overseas posting from India to the Panama Canal, and nicely opens up the action from the play's two locations, while director Mitchell Leisen keeps things on the move.  Yet it barely plays at all; farce, tough enough on stage, even harder on screen.  But the real problem is casting and a general lack of style, unified or otherwise, stolid realism where it needs to be fanciful.  Joan Fontaine, daringly playing her real age (she’s 33!), appears dense instead of out of practice at mothering; and if John Lund's habitual dullness fits Father, he’s still pretty dull up there.  At least they get by, Fontaine even generating a bit of sparkle toward the end as things start to clear up and she takes control over the action & comic reprisals.  But Mona Freeman is quite disastrously wrong as the girl, 25 at the time but channeling modern American teen in a role needing the grace-notes of a young Audrey Hepburn or Jean Simmons.  And you can’t help but see what ought to be happening as kid brother David Stollery, right at her side, lands every gag & bit of sentiment dead center.  A real shame for the play too, as it may be Barrie’s best bet for revival after PAN, excluding his one-act/proto-feminist THE TWELVE POUND LOOK.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *The purposeful over-acting of the stage players gets closer to a workable Barrie style than anything else in here.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Back in 1904, the full original title was PETER PAN, OR THE BOY WHO WOULDN’T GROW UP.  This one might have been named not for Mother ALICE, but for the daughter: AMY, OR THE GIRL WHO WANTED TO GROW UP.