No Nosso Alegre Caminho

Interesting story that doesn't know where it wants to go - I won't be as harsh on this film as other posters. That's perhaps because I know a little about the personal lives of two of it's stars, Burgess Meredith and Paulette Goddard. I just watched this on Kino's DVD. It's one of those rare films with multiple directors and long thought lost. Burgess Meredith and Paulette Goddard get things started for us n the opening and make a cute couple(they were married in real life at the time) and she calls him Oliver, Meredith's real life first name. Meredith plays a newspaper guy and for some reason asks the question "has a child made a difference in your life?" He is IMO trying to get an answer to make something tick for his newspaper article and/or for personal reasons ??. Though this is a scripted film the question, one get's the feeling, is a personal one for Meredith and Goddard, for in real life in 1944 Goddard suffered a miscarriage of their child, probably devastating to both of them. Unless you know that bit of trivia you won't pay but fleeting attention to the conversation between Burgess and Paulette. As stated in the summary this film has to be one of the first motion pictures to show a husband and wife sleeping together in the same bed, which is impressive considering the Breen Production Code in effect at the time. Married couples however would continue to sleep in twin beds until TV shows like The Brady Bunch in the late 1960s. The film pairs off into too many directions first with James Stewart and Henry Fonda, then with Fred MacMurray and William Demarest. Stewart and Fonda were friends in real life and that holds something for fans of the pair but their story is aimless. The duo put on a variety show reminiscent of today's American Idol. MacMurray and Demarest would famously work together again in the mid 60s on My Three Sons, after Demarest replaced William Frawley who became ill and died. MacMurray and Demarest have their comic moments especially with a precocious(in a bad way) little boy called "Sniffles". Demarest is too old for the kind of physical slapstick he's subjected to here. All in all another aimless scene. Dorothy Lamour shows up as a cutie who later dons a sarong in a musical revue. A voluptuous piece of cheesecake, famous for playing the island girl in the Crosby-Hope 'Road' pictures, her stay is all too short. This film should have stayed focused on the interesting beginnings with Meredith and Goddard. Meredith himself is not involved enough in the linking stories to make the finale cohesive. He finds what ever answer/lesson he's looking for but the audience has been shuttled from one minor point to the next. Paulette at the close of the film reveals that she's pregnant(only in the story) and she and Meredith rejoice at end. Their story should have been the main focus of the film and dare the subject of talking about pregnancy which I get at the conclusion that that's what the story was about. Instead we're taken from one inconsequential story to the next without logical tie-in to Meredith and Goddard. That's why I think so many people miss the point and poo-poo the film. But if you know the different junctures of the film especially the part with Burgess Meredith and Paulette Goddard you should be able to enjoy the picture.

Down-on-his-luck newspaper ad-man, working the lost-and-found desk, creates a reporting opportunity for himself wherein he polls everyday citizens with an innocuous yet potentially interesting question, "What affect has a child had on your life?" (this is immediately rectified to 'baby' when posed to two jazz musicians). In the prologue, co-producer and star Burgess Meredith is awfully pushy trying to ingratiate himself to the audience; he and Paulette Goddard make for a curious married couple (to say the least), but they're not around enough to cause too much damage. Still, this overlong compendium involving stammering music-partners, a would-be movie actress, and two traveling showmen fails to touch upon anything personal or provocative. It is initially nice to see Henry Fonda and James Stewart sharing the screen, yet their comedic episode is silly and annoying. Production vales high, cast is game, but there are so few laughs that one may think the filmmakers were actually trying for something meaningful. Sadly, there is no substance or depth on display. *1/2 from ****

And then just sinks into boredom.

Martha Pease (Paulette Goddard) demands that her husband Oliver (Burgess Meredith) tell the newspaper where he works as the "Roving Reporter" that he be allowed to pick his own subjects. She will know if he did that by reading the next edition's Rambling Reporter column and seeing that his idea - How has a small child influenced your life? - is the theme of the column.

After leaving his apartment that morning Oliver confesses to the audience that he is not the Roving Reporter. He is in fact just a classified ad clerk, but that he told his wife this lie before they were married and hasn't had the heart to tell her the truth ever since. As a result he has been lying about his salary and thus he is in peril of having his furniture repossessed and he owes gambling debts. This is all very interesting, but then it just bogs down. And that is hard to believe when one of the vignettes involving people on the street actually being interviewed includes James Stewart and Henry Fonda, good friends in real life, on screen together.

When I first sat down to watch this I wondered why I had never heard of this one. By the time it finished I knew the answer to that question. Avoid.

As the "Trivia" section states, Charles Laughton was in the original version of this film under its title "A Miracle Can Happen". His was a sequence of 20 minutes or so which came between the Fonda/Stewart story and the one with Fred MacMurray which ended the movie. During the war, Laughton had taken to reading from great works of literature, including the Bible, to invalided US servicemen. He continued to give reading tours after the war and his appearance in "A Miracle Can Happen" was clearly an attempt to put one of his Bible readings on film. He played a washed-out minister who bores his congregation to tears, but one rainy night a small boy asks Laughton to visit his sick father. In an attempt to boost the dying man's spirits, Laughton rises to the occasion with an over-the-top delivery of the Saul and David story that completely revitalises the father. It then turned out that the little boy who invited Laughton in, but who has now disappeared from the scene, had died some years earlier. So, as Laughton told Meredith at the end of the sequence, "a miracle happened."

For whatever reason, the Laughton sequence was deleted from the US release but not before prints has been sent abroad to other countries. Consequently, it has long been known that, for example, a Spanish version of "A Miracle Can Happen" - with Laughton and all the others dubbed into that language - has been seen on TV in Spain and is now available there on DVD, complete with the original English dialogue.

With Laughton having been deleted, the Dorothy Lamour sequence was added in as a replacement, and the film was duly re-titled "On Our Merry Way." I agree with the sentiments expressed by others who find this film an embarrassment all round. Fonda and Stewart are no masters of farcical comedy and neither are any of the other principals. As for Laughton in the original film, his hamming up of the Bible story has to be seen to be believed. Nevertheless, both versions are of some interest because of the talents involved but I agree with anyone who says that once you've seen either version you're not likely to want to see them again!

Read someone else saying it was ridiculous, basically, but I thought since full of good actors in really strange rolls, it might be interesting. It was as if someones unprofessional relative was producing, directing it, and all of the actors went along with it just for fun? Or something? I am a big enough fan of old movies and great actors that I am willing to go along for the ride. I got further along this time, than the first time. I generally look into the actors bios as I watch an old movie that I am unfamiliar with. The young woman in the bathing suit, playing the trumpet, was 6'2", I looked her up, bc I thought she looked very tall. I actually laughed a few times throughout the thing, but would not recommend it to anyone. I am just a diehard old movie, great old actor fan.