Life with Father
Time Out says
Clarence Day Jr's tribute to his stern philosophising dad was turned into a play (by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse) that ran for more than 3,000 performances on Broadway, a record in its day, so it's no surprise Donald Ogden Stewart's film adaptation should prove such a satisfying entertainment. Powell dominates an episodic collection of domestic vignettes, with Dunne as the long-suffering wife, young Lydon the future author, and teenage Elizabeth Taylor the intermittent romance angle. Rudimentary comic strategies - the old boy's manful resistance to his belated baptism can only last so long - come up shining thanks to Powell's neatly judged inscription of the reluctant softie behind just so much self-important bluster and a theory on everything. Curtiz knocks it together without so much as breaking sweat.
Details
Release details
Duration:
118 mins
Cast and crew
Director:
Michael Curtiz
Screenwriter:
Donald Ogden Stewart
Cast:
William Powell
Irene Dunne
Jimmy Lydon
Elizabeth Taylor
Edmund Gwenn
ZaSu Pitts
Martin Milner
Emma Dunn
Moroni Olsen
Elizabeth Risdon
Irene Dunne
Jimmy Lydon
Elizabeth Taylor
Edmund Gwenn
ZaSu Pitts
Martin Milner
Emma Dunn
Moroni Olsen
Elizabeth Risdon