Unser Leben mit Vater

I have been a tremendous fan of this movie for many years. I discovered the movie version after I had seen a local stage production and it was an excellent transfer of the play to the screen. Until recently I had only seen it on TV first in black and white years ago and then in color on TCM. I like it so well I bought two of the DVD versions (I won't mention which) and as other reviewers have said they were horrible with washed out color, grainy images and sound that was not synchronized and barely understandable. I guess this is all you can reasonably expect for a movie that has some how slipped into the public domain and for which there is not much demand. However, while searching on Amazon I discovered a review for a new digitally remastered DVD that supposedly fixed all those problems. I ordered a copy and the review was correct. There is now an excellent DVD available from DigiComTV BarCode # 885444062681.

Life With Father, the story of an eccentric, excitable 1880s gentleman and his continually exasperating family is the perfect showcase for the under-appreciated talents of William Powell. Powell, best know for his work with Myrna Loy in the "Thin Man" series of films. Powell uses every second of this plum role to display his charming style and verbal acuity.

The story is simple: Powell and his wife, played by Irene Dunne, face a series of calamities, some serious and some ridiculous, mostly brought on by their four rambunctious, red-headed sons. After a visiting cousin brings along fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, events are put into motion which threaten to turn Powell's neatly-ordered world upside down.

The performances are uniformly fine, and Powell and Dunne are absolutely sterling. A supporting cast that includes Zasu Pitts, Edmund Gwenn and early appearances from Martin Milner and Elizabeth Taylor round out the picture quite well. If there is anything to detract from the complete enjoyment of the film, it is Taylor's performance, which can get grating, but hey, she's just a kid, and when you look at her, you can already see the amazing beauty still to come. The exceptional visual style of the film makes you long for the day when people rode in horse-carts to Delmonico's for dinner.

Watch for some classic dialogue between Powell and Dunne over the cost of a new coffee pot, between Powell and his son about "the facts of life where women are concerned," and the nonsensical wordplay over the return of a Porcelain Pug-Dog.

In his third and final Oscar nomination, William Powell was nominated for playing the bellowing and lovable 19th century domestic tyrant Clarence Day, Sr. in Life With Father. If he had to lose I'm sure Powell was glad it was to his very good friend in real life Ronald Colman for A Double Life. Still with that strange flaming red hair on top of his familiar features, Powell imprints his own personality on the leading role of the longest running play on Broadway up to that time.

Based on the recollections of Clarence Day, Jr. as played by Jimmy Lydon here, Life With Father ran for eight years on Broadway for 3447 performances. It was brought to the stage by Howard Lindsay and his two partners, writing partner Russell Crouse who adapted Day's work to the stage and life partner Dorothy Stickney who with her husband got their career roles on Broadway. The play ran from 1939 through 1947 taking America right through World War II. The time that it was written and presented to the public may account for its popularity as the public might just have wanted reassurance of American values at that critical point.

As Lindsay and Stickney had no kind of movie box office, Warner Brothers decided to acquire William Powell for the lead and cast Irene Dunne as the wise mother who has learned just the right way to handle her husband and inevitably get what she wants. Powell is a man who thinks when all else has failed, he can bellow his way through any situation. My favorite line in the play is when he tries to hire a maid and that title quote is when he's asked for references.

Warner paid a lot in loan outs for this film. Irene Dunne was not a contract employee of his studio and Elizabeth Taylor was also borrowed from MGM for the small, decorative part of a cousin that gets Jimmy Lydon and Martin Milner's hormones in an uproar. The part that Taylor plays was originated on Broadway by another future film star, Teresa Wright.

Incidentally Martin Milner reminisced many years later about the film and said of all the boys and of course Powell, he was the only natural redhead among the lot.

Edmund Gwenn fresh from an Oscar himself for Miracle on 34th Street plays the Episcopalian minister who is trying to get a large contribution from Powell for a new church. Their discussion is also a highlight of the play and the fact that Powell had never been baptized is also a subject of a lot of humor.

Father still had life well into the Fifties with a television series adapted from the play that starred Leon Ames as dear old dad.

The play, the film still have a lot of character in it.

This film's excellent cast brings interest to a story of otherwise routine family events. Almost all of the performers are nicely matched with their characters, especially William Powell and Irene Dunne as the parents. The period piece setting works well most of the time, and although it is occasionally stagy, "Life With Father" is a pleasant movie to watch, with many good comic moments.

Powell is perfect as Mr. Day. The character in himself is not especially distinctive - an autocratic, mildly eccentric, often oblivious patriarch - but Powell gives a fine performance that makes him a worthy center of attention. Dunne is, if anything, even better as the charming and patient Mrs. Day, who is much more clever than she appears, and who in most respects actually runs the household. The rest of the cast includes some fine supporting actors like Zasu Pitts and Edmund Gwenn, with Jimmy Lydon adding a good performance as Clarence, Jr. There is not that much to the actual plot, but the acting, writing, and careful production (including attractive Technicolor photography) make innocent day-to-day events seem significant, and make the viewer want to see how things come out.

Because of the fine cast, this movie works well as comedy and as a thoughtful look at family life. If you enjoy classic cinema, take a look.

I saw this film - once again on the indispensable American Movie Classics Channel - for the first time recently and it has quickly become one of my favorites. It perfectly captures the flavor of Clarence Day's books and draws us completely into the era and into this particular New York brownstone. This was my first viewing of William Powell in what was surely his quintessential role; his work is superb, as is the marvelous chemistry between him and Irene Dunne as his "dear Vinnie". The source of the movie was Clarence Day Jr's three books - "Life With Father", "Life with Mother", and "God and My Father" - which recollect his growing up in late 19th century New York in the well-to-do household of his irascible, catankerous, but ultimately loving father Clarence Sr. As the books are mere strung-together pastiches, it must have been a challenge to assemble them into a coherent whole with a story line. Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse succeeded, in the play on which the film is based, and screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart transferred it to celluloid very nicely. A wonderful character study, and a beautiful snapshot of life in late 19th century New York. Viewers who enjoy it are well-advised to find the books on which they are based (the library is your best bet; the books have gone out of print since their best-seller days long ago). At the conclusion, one hates to have the movie end; you want to spend just another day or two in the Day household.