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Over 21 the film version of the Ruth Gordon play which detailed her experiences trying to keep the marriage together with Garson Kanin after he'd gone in the service provides Irene Dunne with one of her better later roles on the big screen. It's also in keeping with what was then an upbeat spirit in America about how we would not screw up the peace as we did in the first World War and sow the seeds of yet another global conflict.

The play Ruth Gordon wrote and starred in herself ran for 221 performances in 1944 on Broadway and was confined simply to the bungalow that Gordon and Harvey Stephens who was the male lead had on a training base. If you look on the Broadway credits list it says that the production was 'staged' by George S. Kaufman as opposed to being directed by him. I'm not sure of the distinction, but I can imagine that with a wit and will as strong as Kaufman's it must have been an interesting period putting the production together before opening night.

When Columbia bought the screen rights, Sidney Buchman had to do some considerable script reconstruction to move the action beyond the bungalow. The film bears very little trace of its stage origins.

Alexander Knox plays the husband and Charles Coburn the employer of both Dunne and Knox who are writers. Knox has graduated to not only editor, but featured columnist. His words and thoughts help sell the paper and Coburn is in a bind. But Knox feels he has to get into the war, the seminal event of his time in order to speak authoritatively on the kind of post war world he wants. This was not an uncommon theme in those years.

Irene Dunne has some good comic moments, the kind she used to have when she was appearing opposite Cary Grant. In fact Garson Kanin directed both of them in My Favorite Wife a few years earlier. Coburn is his usual cantankerous old water buffalo of a boss who ultimately has a good heart.

Over 21 was an optimistic picture which sad to say wasn't accurate about what the Allies and I mean all of them could bring to the peace conferences to create a better world. Still hopefully a new generation will get it right.

While hubby Alexander KNOX is undergoing the rigors of officer training at an army base, IRENE DUNNE must contend humorously with several hardships of her own, including a floorboard that has to be stamped upon in order to open a window, light switches in inconvenient places, a refrigerator caked with ice, and a lack of cooking skill that means she has to call upon her willing female neighbors when her husband brings a buddy over for dinner. In addition, she has a newspaper editor (CHARLES COBURN) hounding her husband to write another article from the newspaper he walked out on--a chore which Dunne takes upon herself to do so hubby won't be distracted from his work.

Based on Ruth Gordon's own experiences as an army wife (married to writer/director Garson Kanin), it serves as a delightful role for IRENE DUNNE, who lights up the screen with her presence and has never been more attractively photographed.

But the material itself is a bit uneven, deadly serious one moment and then straying into the field of screwball comedy at other times.

Another drawback is the performance of Alexander KNOX as the overage hubby, not the world's most charismatic actor. It's the kind of role that should have been played by either EDDIE ALBERT or a bigger star like CARY GRANT.

JEFF DONNELL is amusing as a devoted soldier's wife and CHARLES EVANS and LEE PATRICK do nicely in supporting roles. But it's almost a two character story with the spotlight on Dunne and Knox running occasional interference from crusty CHARLES COBURN, and most of it takes place in their cramped living quarters which must have kept the film at a very low budget.

Summing up: An essential Irene Dunne film for her fans.

I first saw this movie in the 1960's on TV. I subsequently saw it a couple of more times in the next few years but have not seen it since the late 1960's. I don't believe there are any existing copies of it, but I may be wrong. I found the movie, as I recall it, pleasant and amusing. As you can tell, it made an impression on me.

This film is about the editor (Alexander Knox) of a New York newspaper who, already an older individual, gets called near the end of World War II, into the U.S. Army's Officer Candidate School and the difficulties he goes through to meet the standards in order to become an officer. He agreed at his publisher's (Charles Coburn) urging to continue with editorial writing. Because he becomes burden with trying to pass the classes at OCS he becomes, he can't devote time to effort to writing the weekly editorials as he promised. His wife (Irene Dunne), who lives with him while he attends OCS, starts writing the editorials but passes them off to the publisher as his (Knox's character does not know that she keeps writing the editorials after he stops).

What impressed me about this movie was a speech Knox's character gives at the graduating class commencement in OCS toward the end of the movie. It is called "The World and Apple Pie" and speaks about the need for America to remain active in world affairs after World War II ends (in view of America's isolationism prior to World War II). He makes the analogy between the ingredients and person that make a apple pie and the ingredients that and people that make a peaceful world, that the pie and the world are only as good as the ingredients and the people who made them.

If there is an extant copy of the movie with the speech in it, I would love to find it. If you do have a chance to see the movie, do so. It's not a great movie but the speech, I think, will make its mark.

I did come across a book, a few years back, containing Ruth Gordon's play upon which the movie was based but the play did not have the speech in it.

It is well known that Irene Dunne could sing somewhat more than a little. And I think her talent as a comedienne can only be really understood once one has struggled through a sonata by Haydn or a song by Debussy and made a success of it. Her instrument is her voice and her handling of it is pure musicianship. She could tackle any part. The only thing she couldn't do was to not make a success of it. This film is a perfect example. In it, she channels Ruth Gordon (because the play is the thing), is feminine, charming, willful and self-effacing, generous, protective and combative but never pretentious. She manages to stay as believable as Alexander Knox is in another difficult role he assumes with aplomb. The viewer gets to believe in what he is seeing and to care for it. It is refreshing to see a film that is both entertaining and intellectually challenging while pushing all the right patriotic buttons. I sincerely hope the entire Dunne oeuvre makes it to DVD one day because it's really hard to keep a secret like that among just a few initiates.

"Over 21" stars Alexander Knox, Irene Dunne, Charles Coburn, and Jeff Donnell in a wartime story based on a Broadway play written by and starring Ruth Gordon. Gordon joined husband Garson Kanin when he joined the service and the play is inspired by that experience.

Here, Knox plays the 39-year-old newspaper editor Max Wharton, who feels that he can't write about the war unless he gets into the fray himself. His boss, Robert Gow (Charles Coburn) has a fit and so does his wife Paula (Dunne) but he insists. Paula gets housing in a broken-down bungalow so she can be closer to him. Max, meanwhile, is having a tough time. There are lots of tests, and there is a theory that people "over 21" can't absorb anything. Also his boss keeps calling, intending to pressure him to return to the paper as he is needed. Paula keeps Gow from talking to Max, but acts as if Max has agreed to write editorials. She then, under the guise of working on a screenplay, writes them herself.

This is an okay movie, if somewhat frantic. Dunne always had a wonderful style and a flair for comedy. She does a good job here but it almost seems as if she's working too hard. She has a huge part and she's not really surrounded by people as good as she is at comedy, so perhaps that's why. Knox gives an excellent speech at the end of the film.

"Over 21" is enjoyable, it's pleasant, it's no great guns, but the speech at the end is inspired.