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Wednesday, March 25, 2020

CLAUDIA AND DAVID (1946)

Having transferred her big B’way success into a hit movie debut, Dorothy McGuire double-dipped on CLAUDIA/’43 with a sequel continuing the modest bumps & bruises of upper-middle-class marriage to solid, sensible, self-centered David, her dependable architect husband (again played by Robert Young). Alas, the debatable charm of an innocent, inexperienced, ill-prepared ‘child-bride’ has curdled with the passing years into an off-putting patronizing manner & attitude (from David and the movie). Three years after the first film, we’ve jumped ahead about seven to judge by their son, but Claudia has, if anything, regressed socially & intellectually. In a way, it’s rather fascinating, not dissimilar to what millions of women were experiencing with the end of the war economy & the resurgence of gender definitions that had collapsed for the war effort. And, of course, social & medical ideas of the day stand out in stark relief. People certainly were laid-back about measles back in the day! But for non-social-historians, mainly worth a peek to see Mary Astor in a decent role wipe the floor in star wattage with everyone else on screen.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: For a better snapshot of the means, manners & comforts of post-WWII suburban boom, try Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s A LETTER TO THREE WIVES/’49 which also provides proof that Jeanne Crain & Dorothy McGuire weren’t the same person.

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