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Penny Serenade (1941)
In director George Stevens' sentimental, classic heartbreaker,
soap-opera melodrama - a preface or connecting element to each
of the flashbacked episodic vignettes was the playing of a popular
song on a Victrola phonograph to set the tone and bring back memories:
- through flashbacks, the maudlin film followed
the romantic courtship and married life of a couple - charming
spendthrift and newspaperman Roger Adams (Best Actor-nominated
Cary Grant) and his future wife Julie Gardiner (Irene Dunne)
- ("You Were Meant For Me") - in the
film's opening, Julie was working in a NYC record shop where she
and Roger first met
- by New Years Day, Roger
had impulsively proposed marriage to Julie after receiving an offer
to work for two years in Japan; following a hasty marriage and
a quick goodbye scene at the train station, Julie couldn't leave
him and remained in his train compartment (for a 45 minute honeymoon)
until it was over 100 miles on its journey toward San Francisco
- ("Poor Butterfly") a few months later,
a pregnant Julie joined Roger in Japan, where they rented a large
house, and had hired a couple (with three children) to work and
live there; after a very brief time in Tokyo, Roger announced
that they would be leaving Japan; he had received an inheritance
of $10,000, and had decided to quit his newspaper job and travel
around the world with Julie; their plans did not work out, however
- in 1923, a major earthquake damaged their house and severely
injured Julie, who suffered a miscarriage, became barren, and was
hospitalized in San Francisco
- Julie recovered, and Roger
struck out on his own by purchasing a small newspaper in the small
town (fictional) of Rosalia, CA, north of SF - The Rosalia Weekly
Courier; they would both live in a two-story
apartment (with living quarters upstairs - with a nursery - and
an office downstairs); Roger also hired an old Brooklyn colleague
named Apple Jack (Edgar Buchanan) as his printer and press manager
- the despondent, childless parents decided to adopt a child, and visited an adoption
agency in San Francisco to meet with kindly case worker representative
Miss Oliver (Beulah Bondi); they were told that the long waiting list meant they might
not have an adoptee for a year; Roger exaggerated when asked during
an investigation about his finances, and bragged that he made
$100 dollars a week
- after a waiting period, they brought home a five-week
old adopted baby girl named Trina (Baby Biffie) for a year's probation,
although at first Roger had stated that he preferred a two-year
old boy with blue eyes, dimples and curly hair; however, he immediately
fell in love with the baby
- adjusting to parenting for their first few nights
was difficult - the flustered couple was exhausted after getting
up all night to attend to the baby - they were nervous about keeping
quiet, and also were uncertain about how to bathe and diaper the
child until Apple Jack demonstrated for them
- ("My Blue Heaven") - a year later after
the probation period ended, the matronly Miss Oliver arrived to see
if the adoption could be permanently approved; Roger was forced
to confess that he actually had no income when he was forced to
close down the paper
- in a scene before a judge (Wallis Clark),
during an impassioned speech - the film's
highlight, Roger movingly begged and pleaded for the
official to grant them a continuation of the adoption, rather than
cruelly return the child to the orphanage: ("...the
first time I saw her, she looked so little and helpless. I didn't
know babies were so, so little. And then when she took a-hold of
my finger and I held onto it. She, she just sort of walked into
my heart Judge and, and she was there to stay. I didn't know I
could feel like that... It's not only for my wife and me, I'm asking
you to let us keep her Judge, it's for her sake, too. She doesn't
know any parents but us. She wouldn't know what'd happened to her.
You see, there's so many little things about her that nobody would
understand her the way Judy and I do. We love her Judge, please
don't take her away from us. Look, I'm not a big shot now, I-I'll
do anything, I'll work for anybody. I-I'll beg, I'll borrow, I-I'll.
Please, Judge, I'll sell anything I've got until I get going again.
And she'll never go hungry, she'll never be without clothes not
so long as I've got two good hands, so help me!"); through his
words, he was able to convince the judge to let them retain the custody
of the child
- ("Silent Night") - six years later during
Christmas, the two parents were faced some time after with the sudden and unexpected
death of their six-year-old child Trina (Eva Lee Kuney) following
a brief illness; as a result, the couple had become downtrodden and
estranged to each other - and Roger wanted no reminders of his dead
child and felt they should dissolve their marriage; the
bereaving Mrs. Adams wrote a letter to the saddened Miss Oliver notifying her:
("Since the night of Trina's death, we have been like strangers
to one another. I don't know what to do. It seems as if there is
nothing between us any more. I've tried to talk to him, but he does
not wish to listen. He is punishing himself, not realizing that he
is also punishing me")
- ("You Were Meant For Me") - now in the present, the
two guilt-ridden parents Roger and Julie were still essentially separated,
and felt defeated in life; unexpectedly, they received a phone call
from Miss Oliver that another child - a two-year
old boy, was being offered for adoption to them: ("He's
the exact image of the youngster you asked for when you first wrote
to me. Do you remember? I have that old letter here in front of me
now - 'Curly hair, blue eyes, dimples'. And this is strictly off
the record, but really, another couple has the right to see him first,
but he's such a remarkable baby that I thought perhaps you and Mr.
Adams might take a look")
- the film ended on a hopeful and optimistic note -
Julie responded with great anticipation that they wanted to adopt
- and in the process restore their marriage: "Please
don't have that other couple see him until we do!"
Miss Oliver's Receipt of Letter from Mrs. Adams
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A New Adoption Possibility
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Adams' Family's Adoption of Baby Girl
Roger's Plea to Judge to Keep Child
Their Daughter Trina
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