Penny Serenade

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source: Penny Serenade

Irene Dunne and Cary Grant play a couple that have a whirlwind courtship. When they first meet he's a journalist who's irresponsible with his money and doesn't like children. She's more conventional and practical, and here as in life opposites often attract and come to some middle ground. This is nothing more than the story of a marriage with quite a bit of heartbreak along the way. To say much more than that would give the plot away. The movie starts at the end as Irene Dunne's character prepares to leave town and her marriage behind. She is going through a stack of records and reminiscing, thus the title "Penny Serenade" as we get a flashback of the couple's life together and what brought them to the point of separation. This film moves quite slowly, but every scene, no matter how small, has significance as you grow to really care about this couple and what happens to them and feel sad that they have been so thoroughly mugged by life that they feel they must part. Beulah Bondi and Edgar Buchanan play good friends to and in a way guardian angels of the couple who realize that these two have something special together that is worth saving. Highly recommended and a sentimental favorite of mine.

Two people meet (Irene Dunne, Cary Grant), fall in love and get married. She gets pregnant but has a miscarriage. They adopt a baby girl and love her completely. Then the kid dies and tears them apart. It all leads to an eye-rolling finale that had me hating the movie a LOT! Supposedly this is loved by tons of movie goers but I can't see why. The first hour is slow with painfully clichéd dialogue and laughably ridiculous symbolism. I actually broke out laughing when it was made clear that Dunne had a miscarriage by having rocks falling on her! It's also deadly dull. You've seen these characters and have heard this dialogue before. Only the considerable acting talents of the two leads make it bearable. Then the kid comes in and the film ruthlessly manipulates the audience to cry again and again. Sure I cried but the script is the equivalent of someone grabbing you by the throat and making you cry! I object to being forced into it. It leads to a finale which was so utterly ridiculous I was both slack-jawed AND offended. Also the film is VERY VERY slow and far too long. People love overly sentimental and unrealistic garbage like THIS??? This gets five stars for a few reasons: Dunne and Grant were cast against type and are great. Totally believable all the way through--Grant was even nominated for an Academy Award for this. Grant's speech in front of a judge is incredible and the only true tear-jerking moment where I felt I wasn't being forced. Also we're spared seeing the kid dying (it's related through a letter). Edgar Buchanan as Uncle Jack and Beulah Bondi as Miss Oliver are very good in supporting roles. Also the song choices are appropriate and pretty good. Still this is a dreary, manipulative and depressing little film that gives good tear-jerkers a bad name!

The film stars off well showing Irene Dunne on the brink of divorce with Cary Grant, going through her record collection and being reminded of the ups and downs of their marriage with each tune. First their courtship through to marriage, -loved the train scene-then to an earthquake in Japan causing a miscarriage and infertility, to the couple deciding to adopt. This is where the film began to lose me. They go to 'choose' a child with a list of their requirements, blond hair, bue eyes, must be a boy and so on. Despite this first red flag they are somehow the perfect parents for a baby girl and are allowed to jump the queue to get her even though Roger does not seem keen at all to begin with. I would never give a baby to this couple! Also the adoption lady keeps banging on that it's a very special baby but doesn't say why. It looked like a pretty normal baby to me. I actually though that maybe it was deaf and that's why it couldn't hear the alarm on their first night at home together and that's why it was special but no. Moving on, the child is now six and is played in a rather sickeningly cute manner. She does a very odd forced smile at the end of her lines which is quite unnerving and down to poor direction. Suddenly she dies of a tragic illness. Thankfully we don't have to watch this but in literally days the couple are splitting up as they can't bear each other as are so grief-stricken. But in the last act they have a phone call from the adoption lady to say 'Don't worry, we now have that perfect, blond, blue eyed boy you wanted all along' and everyone is happy again. The end. This ending is just so wrong to suggest that their beloved daughter can be replaced so easily and quickly. It would have made a lot more sense to have shown the couple grieving and growing apart over a few years and then coming together over the prospect of a new adoption in the future, after they had mourned their daughter fully. I give the film 3 stars because it looks good and the leads are great but it was a frustrating and ultimately unfulfilling film that I would not recommend.

It is hard not to want to see, well in my case it was actually re-watch (liked it a lot on first watch, but wanted to see it again after years), 'Penny Serenade' with a cast this good, having in particular loved many of Irene Dunne and Cary Grant's performances. Also have liked to loved some of George Stevens' other films, particularly 'Shane', 'Swing Time' and 'A Place in the Sun'. With all that in mind, it was also hard to not have high expectations before and while watching, and was really hoping it would be good considering what it had going for it having seen a fair share of frustrating potential wastes. 'Penny Serenade' was luckily not one of those potential wastes, and the reasons as to why it was seen (cast, director, premise) weren't squandered either. Found it to be a great film that was even better than remembered, with genuine emotional impact and immense likeability. Also thought that mostly it avoided the traps that it easily could have fallen into, considering the type of film (essentially a melodrama, not an easy type of film to nail) it was. A type of film that can be done well, and has been done well numerous times, but has a good deal of dangers evidenced by just as many films falling into those traps. Maybe 'Penny Serenade' moves too slowly at first, it doesn't find its momentum straight away. The ending also felt a bit too pat and tacked on. However, 'Penny Serenade' is very nicely shot and looks like it was made with care and love. Stevens directs with expert control, mostly keeping the story engaging, getting the best out of his cast and stopping the story from going over-the-top on the sentimentality, doing all of this with ease. The music is lovely to listen to and didn't ever find the placement questionable, a good thing seeing as music is a very important thing to talk about when reviewing for me and can find how the music is placed as important as the music itself. Script is thought-provoking and warm-hearted, with the highlight being Grant's big speech that really brought a lump to my throat. Once it gets going, the story is charming and engaging more often than not, with also a relatability factor that's inspiring yet wrenching the gut worthy, but it's the emotional impact that makes 'Penny Serenade' memorable. This is genuinely poignant stuff without being sentimental-heavy, and it is very difficult to not clutch at your heart or reach for the tissues watching the film. Furthermore, the characters are ones investing in and relating to and brought to life by the note-perfect cast. Dunne radiates class and Beulah Bondi and especially Edgar Buchannan provide sympathetic and knowing support, but it's a superb Grant at his most heartfelt who sticks out the most. He and Dunne's chemistry is beautifully tender. All in all, slow start but well worth sticking with, because up until the ending it is a beautiful film. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are very good in this bittersweet romance, mainly made up of flashbacks with the links between them being records from the past played by Dunne. We see the couple through their first meeting, marriage, move abroad, and so on. The central thread of the story is when they adopt a baby girl, Trina, who fills the void in their marriage. When Trina dies as a child it seems there is nothing more to hold them together. Edgar Buchanan is excellent as uncle Applejack, the printer who knows how to handle babies, and the little girl playing Trina is cutesy cute in the nativity play scene. Grant's best moment is in the judge's office when he pleads to be allowed to keep his adopted daughter (because she isn't like an automobile you take back when you can't keep up the payments). The ending however is weak; another baby is found for them to adopt and all their troubles are over. This feels rushed and doesn't really work. Otherwise, a well put together film which is typical of the time it was made.

The first 3/4 of the movie is cute, but nothing to rave about: boy meets girl, they eventually falling love, marry, she becomes pregnant and everyone is happy. Then disaster strikes in the form of an earthquake causes her to miscarry and her injuries are such that she will never be able to have a child. They are sad but stick together through it, and they eventually put their lives back together again. They decide they still want a child so they adopt. When they get to the adoption agency, a kind adoption lady presents them with a baby girl and they fall in love with the child and decide to adopt her. You see the adoption process and how happy they are. It is cute to see them learn how to take care of a baby. Their financial situation changes when the child is about 2, and before the adoption is final, the adoption head honchos threaten to take her away, because now they are poor. A stirring speech by Grant (and the faith of the kind adoption lady) convinces said honchos that Grant and Dunne are still good parents and that their child will never starve. They are allowed to keep the child, who we next see as sweet a little girl as anyone could wish for. Now as I said, up to this point, everything has been fine, some downs, but they've worked out their problems and are a happy, functioning family unit. As a whole the movie up to this point has been as cute and sweet as their little girl. Then BAM, the next minute the kid is dead (no warning to the audience that the kid is sick, just BAM dead of something or other). They are too grief stricken to help each other, and instead tear themselves and each other a part. It's only been THREE DAYS since the little darling's death, and they are splitting up because they just can't handle the grief (this explains why Dunne is packing to leave Grant throughout the current time scenes in the film). Dunne wrote to the kind adoption lady telling her their tragedy as soon as the girl died, and before Dunne has a chance to leave Grant for good, the adoption lady informs the couple (who have yet to make up and are just as miserable as ever - remember it has only been three days since their little girl died) that the agency just got in a sweet little boy (two years old, golden curls, the sort of kid they thought they wanted to adopt before they saw their baby girl), and would they be interested in seeing him? Now suddenly, everything is a-okay, and they have plans to turn their daughter's room in to the perfect room for a little boy. Nothing, has been resolved in their marriage. Before they found out about the boy they were in the middle of deeply grieving for their daughter, in fact they were so grief stricken I thought for sure they were going to turn the little girl's room in to a shrine or something. Then they hear about this little boy, and it's like their little girl never existed. In short, the ending is unnecessarily tragic in the little girls death alone, more so when her death splits Dunne and Grant apart, and ruined both by the fact that the couples problems are not fixed at the end of the movie, just papered over, and the treatment of a loss of a child as something a kin to the loss of a goldfish. Oh you lost your child? that's sad, but not a real problem. Just never you mind that and buck-up mom and dad, here's another. It is as though the movie is almost a warning to parents, enjoy them now because the little ones you love maybe taken from you at any moment, except, just kidding, that does not really matter because you can always have another and poof your grief will be gone. Basically, if you stop the movie at the Christmas when the girl is six, it is not bad, it's a cute film, though not worth its rave reviews. The last twenty minutes or so ruin it, turning a tolerable film in to something that I just can't take.

George Stevens' heartwarming study of the trials and tribulations of a young married couple is how TV Guide describes this work of art,but you have to see this to understand how heartwarming a movie can be. As I watch this I am enchanted with Irene Dunne's and Cary Grant's performances. Even crotchety Edgar Buchanan (as Applejack) is a softy in this movie...I like his performance in this better than all his others. The insights to adopting a baby and early parenthood as it was and still is in some respects are truly the heart of this movie. Since I was adopted it is even more poignant for me. Cary Grant's plea to the judge to keep their child is one of his best moments in any film. Update 14 years to the day later,I am not as enchanted but maybe that's just me.I'm going to add the spoiler because it's such a major part of this movie and my life.The death of a child is the worst experience a parent can go through. Some don't recover as this couple almost didn't. I don't think many,if any parents would act like the ones in this movie with the news that another child was available for adoption,so that diminished the movie for me.