Life With Father

Life With Father (1947)

Director Micheal Curtiz couldn’t have been a better choice to adapt this longest running Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse broadway play to the screen. After all, who better to direct a “family values” story than the man responsible for the great Yankee Doodle Dandy. William Powell is superb in the role of Clarence Day, the benign despotic head of an upper class family living in 1883 Manhattan. But Irene Dunne is the real star of this film in her performance as Vinnie Day, the outwardly bewildered, yet inwardly strong matriarch of the family who manages to keep father in check and the rest of the household running fairly smoothly. The real hilarity is Vinnie’s determination to have her husband baptized so that he will be able to enter the Gates of Heaven with her. Clarence’s fitful answer is to first shrug it off, then, when pressed further by his determined wife, to state, “Vinnie…if there is one place the church should leave alone it is a man’s soul.” This wonderful Technicolor production is one of the great American films about family values and an opportunity to see one of Hollywood’s greatest stars, Elizabeth Taylor, early in her career. 4 Academy Award Nominations 1947: Best Actor, Best Score, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction. (1947)

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