Set photo Life With father (1947)
French postcard in the Entr'acte series by Éditions Asphodèle, Mâcon, no. 001/02. Photo: set photo of Life With Father (Michael Curtiz, 1947). Caption: For the purposes of the film, a real pit in a dummy street at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.
In the comedy Life With Father (Michael Curtiz, 1947), William Powell stars as the fussy father, Clarence Day, a successful New York City banker, with a huge home on Park Avenue in Manhattan in the 1880s. Clarence is an overpowering figure in the household enough to scare the latest maid away. The bombastic patriarch likes to think his house runs his way but finds himself constantly bemused at how much of what happens is down to his sweet-natured and charming wife, Binnie, played by Irene Dunne. His children are also stretching their wings, discovering girls, and making money selling patent medicines. When it comes to light that he has never been baptised and everyone urges him to remedy this, it gets to be too much.
Life With Father was adapted from a long-running Broadway hit by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, which was again based on humorist Clarence Day Junior's memoirs, three books that remain entertaining: 'God and My Father', 'Life With Father, and 'Life With Mother'. Donald Ogden Stewart's screenplay is full of big entrances, punched-up laugh lines, and broad exposition. Thin on plot, long on charm and whimsical humor, the Broadway play is given a lavish, technicolor treatment under the steady direction of Michael Curtiz. Jimmy Lydon and a very young Martin Milner play two of Powell and Dunne's four red-haired sons. Warner Bros borrowed lovely Elizabeth Taylor from MGM for the small, decorative part of a cousin that gets Lydon and Milner's hormones in an uproar, and in the supporting cast are also Zasu Pitts and Edmund Gwenn. William Powell received his third and final Oscar nomination for his role and won the New York Film Critics award. The film was also nominated for set design and music Oscars. Due to the censorship demands of 1947, his final line in the film had to be changed. When asked by a policeman if he is going off to his office, the original line in the play was, "No, I'm going to be baptized, dammit!" Imagine, back in 1947, "dammit" was forbidden on screen. Father still had a life well into the 1950s with a television series adapted from the play that starred Leon Ames as the old dad.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Set photo Life With father (1947)
French postcard in the Entr'acte series by Éditions Asphodèle, Mâcon, no. 001/02. Photo: set photo of Life With Father (Michael Curtiz, 1947). Caption: For the purposes of the film, a real pit in a dummy street at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.
In the comedy Life With Father (Michael Curtiz, 1947), William Powell stars as the fussy father, Clarence Day, a successful New York City banker, with a huge home on Park Avenue in Manhattan in the 1880s. Clarence is an overpowering figure in the household enough to scare the latest maid away. The bombastic patriarch likes to think his house runs his way but finds himself constantly bemused at how much of what happens is down to his sweet-natured and charming wife, Binnie, played by Irene Dunne. His children are also stretching their wings, discovering girls, and making money selling patent medicines. When it comes to light that he has never been baptised and everyone urges him to remedy this, it gets to be too much.
Life With Father was adapted from a long-running Broadway hit by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, which was again based on humorist Clarence Day Junior's memoirs, three books that remain entertaining: 'God and My Father', 'Life With Father, and 'Life With Mother'. Donald Ogden Stewart's screenplay is full of big entrances, punched-up laugh lines, and broad exposition. Thin on plot, long on charm and whimsical humor, the Broadway play is given a lavish, technicolor treatment under the steady direction of Michael Curtiz. Jimmy Lydon and a very young Martin Milner play two of Powell and Dunne's four red-haired sons. Warner Bros borrowed lovely Elizabeth Taylor from MGM for the small, decorative part of a cousin that gets Lydon and Milner's hormones in an uproar, and in the supporting cast are also Zasu Pitts and Edmund Gwenn. William Powell received his third and final Oscar nomination for his role and won the New York Film Critics award. The film was also nominated for set design and music Oscars. Due to the censorship demands of 1947, his final line in the film had to be changed. When asked by a policeman if he is going off to his office, the original line in the play was, "No, I'm going to be baptized, dammit!" Imagine, back in 1947, "dammit" was forbidden on screen. Father still had a life well into the 1950s with a television series adapted from the play that starred Leon Ames as the old dad.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.