‘Blanket’ lighting, airless soundstage exteriors, faceless supporting players, only leading man Richard Widmark and power-couple scribblers Kay & Michael Kanin pull this up from programmer status to B+ production. Widmark plays a single Dad whose ex (Audrey Totter) abandoned him & their two-month old before he broke thru as a captain of industry type. (It’s the candy industry, but still.) A hard charging deal-maker, he thinks he can solve all problems with cash, so barely notices his now six-yr-old (George Winslow, the tot with the bull frog voice*) has become a tantrum throwing terror. With no Mary Poppins in sight, he sticks the boy in Joanne Dru’s private schoolhouse program only to find out he can’t buy his way past her parental participatory policies. Anyone for opposites attract? Two acts later, the boy’s under control, Widmark’s fallen for ‘teach,’ and there’s not much left for drama. Earning their salary at last, it’s Kanins to the rescue, with a third act that squeezes in three acts in one as Totter shows up to claim motherly rights in kid & cash after missing five+ years. Turns out their Mexican divorce ain’t valid. Smartly worked out* (Totter always a vivid baddie), with divorce court adding a bit of suspense even under Robert Parrish’s hands-off megging. Not a lot of chemistry between the leads, but Widmark looks neat as a pin in well-tailored business suits.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/LINK: *The set up (a kid so terrible you want to send him right back) must have been designed as a variation on THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF, but the Kanins held off since 20th/FOX was using that story the same year in O’HENRY’S FULL HOUSE/’52. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/01/o-henrys-full-house-1952.html
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Young Winslow’s freakish baritone (remembered from Howard Hawks’ GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES/’53) was the exact opposite of a Boy Soprano, but with a career trajectory ending exactly the same way: in puberty.
No comments:
Post a Comment