Mother Carey's Chickens

Widowed Fay Bainter and her two sons and two daughters move into a house and turn it into a boarding house. When the house is sold from under them, what will they do?

Katherine Hepburn was originally considered for a role in this movie, which looks like a follow-up to Little Women. She turned down the role and bought out her contract. As the movie exists, with direction by Rowland Lee, it was a wise decision. Although filled with good incidents and some fine supporting players -- Walter Brennan, Margaret Hamilton, Alma Kruger, Ralph Morgan -- there is no clear sense of more to it than that. In tone it seems caught between a situation comedy and nostalgia for the simpler days of the Mauve Decade, with a strong taste of the necessity of having enough money to get by on. Daughters Anne Shirley and Ruby Keeler are cute enough, and sons Jackie Moran and Donnie Dunagan charming enough. However, while good enough on its own terms, it's little more than that.

Not bad but strictly B movie shenanigans that lays the syrup on pretty thick.

Originally assigned to Katharine Hepburn at the tail end of the first phase of her screen career when she had been branded box office poison. She realized that if this was the best RKO was going to offer her that her career was doomed and wisely bought out the remainder of her contract and fled back east to regroup returning in triumph a few years later with The Philadelphia Story.

The film does have a few things going for it, mainly the supporting cast. Fay Bainter is gentle and warm as Mother Carey but she is sidelined after the first quarter of the picture to make room for a few sappy love stories and some minor drama and a smidgen of comedy. Old reliables Walter Brennan and Margaret Hamilton both add a bit of flavor to the film but it's strictly a second string affair.

This was a delightful surprise. I'd heard about the actresses who'd turned down the lead role and -- let's face it -- the title is pretty corny.

But it is a charming movie -- funny and touching by turns. The little boy in it gets fairly low billing but far too much screen time. He's icky and barely understandable in many scenes. Otherwise I'd rats the movie a full 10.

I am kind of a cynic when it comes to Americana but now and then, it really works; and this is one of those times.

The movie reminds me of "Meet Me In St. Louis," which it predates, in that it is about a strong, loving family that stays together and triumphs over odds.

Ruby Keeler is surprisingly good in the role turned down by Katharine Hepburn and others. Fay Bainter is at her most appealing. James Ellison is, as always, appealing, as are Anne Shirley and Walter Brennan. In a juicy role that came a year before the one that made her famous, Margaret Hamilton is the kind of villain moviegoers love to see get her comeuppance, which she and her hapless husband surely do, thanks to the ingenuity of the family and the two sisters' beaux.

Family epic of the Carey family, as they go through good times and bad. They pack a lot of story into this one. At times, its so soapy sweet we want to hurl... those little kids say things way beyond their years. At other times, it swings back and forth between serious scenes and funny times. Keep an eye out for Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch, who plays a mean old cow here too!) Astute viewers will recognize Virginia Weidler as the goofy little girl next door. Weidler was only about ten when she made this, but she was probably better known for playing the daughter in "The Woman" one year later. Mom and Dad Carey are played by Fay Bainter and Ralph Morgan.... Morgan was Frank Morgan's brother... another Wizard of Oz connection! Thank goodness they let Walter Brennan have a large role as the kind neighbor, or this one would have been too cutesy to take. I was getting pretty sick of the little kids antics, but maybe this was aimed toward a younger audience ? The wallpaper hanger (Lew Kelly) has a couple lines in this one, but oddly, of the parts he played in over 200 films, most were uncredited roles. Story by Kate Wiggin, who had also written "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm". Pretty good story, but it does get soapy, sudsy cute now and then.

My guess is that the Walt Disney studio did not want this version of Mother Carey's Chickens competing with it's remake entitled Summer Magic so this film is rarely seen. Both versions are nice entertainment.

Maybe because it's a little closer to the 1898 setting that this version is a bit more realistic. In the Disney version the character of the father played by Ralph Morgan is eliminated, in that one Mother Carey is already a widow. Here with Morgan's death in the Spanish American War we see just what kind of genteel poverty the Careys have been driven into.

Katherine Hepburn reportedly bought out her contract so that she wouldn't have to do this film. Watching it I kind of understand the thinking at RKO. Probably the studio thought this would be a return to one of Kate's most beloved roles from Little Women. There sure is a lot of similarity. I can also understand Hepburn's thinking that this would be a step back not forward for her career. In any event Ruby Keeler who had just been let go at Warner Brothers did her part.

Fay Bainter in the year she won the Best Supporting Actress Award for Jezebel plays Mother Carey who holds her brood together through all kinds of financial and romantic strife. It's a nice role for her and she does well by it. Walter Brennan who hailed from the rural New England area in real life that Mother Carey's Chickens is set in has one of his patented folksy rustics as the local storekeeper.

Though Margaret Hamilton's most famous role was a year away as the Wicked Witch of the West aka Miss Gulch in The Wizard of Oz, here she has a part that makes the witch look like Mother Teresa. She and her milquetoast husband want the old house the Careys have been forced to move in and are willing to do just about anything to get them out. Of course they don't reckon with Carey resourcefulness.

James Ellison and Frank Albertson play a nice pair of suitors for the Carey girls Anne Shirley and Ruby Keeler. Younger Carey brother Jackie Moran has some young romantic problems of his own with Virginia Weidler. But coming close to stealing the film is little Donnie Dunnigan playing Peter Carey. His scene where he tries to 'help' with the hanging of the wallpaper is priceless. In fact watching this I think I know where Leo McCarey got the idea in The Bells of St. Mary's to just turn the camera loose on a gang of little children doing a nativity play as a kind of improvisation. I don't think you could have scripted little Donnie's scenes for this.

Hopefully I'll get to see Summer Magic soon and compare. Hopefully you will all get to see both versions.