Week-End with Father

New York's Grand Central Station is full of children going away to summer camp. Among those present are widower Van Heflin (as Brad Stubbs) with his two girls, and widow Patricia Neal (as Jean Bowen) with her two boys. The previously unacquainted adults meet at the station while sending their twosomes away from home for the first time. You should have no trouble figuring out the basic storyline. The girls are real-life sisters Gigi Perreau (as Anne Stubbs) and Janine Perreau (as Patty Stubbs). The boys are Jimmy Hunt (as Garrett "Gary" Bowen) and Tommy Rettig (as David "Shorty" Bowen)...

During the "father-son" athletic competition, young Hunt sustained an injury and "little brother" Rettig found his role expanded. In some scenes, Hunt can be seen with his left arm held still or concealed...

This sort of story reached its madcap peak with "Yours, Mine and Ours" (1968). The adult romance is unexciting, but there is fun watching their rivals. Television star Virginia Field (as Phyllis Reynolds) also wants to wed Mr. Heflin, and muscular camp counselor Richard Denning (as Don Adams) desires Ms. Neal. As the co-stars hired "help", Frances E. Williams and Elvia Allman are amusing. Heflin and the children benefit particularly well from Douglas Sirk's capable direction. Playing a ten-year-old with nail polish and a toothy boyfriend, Gary Pagett (as Eddie), young Gigi is especially enchanting.

****** Week-End with Father (12/51) Douglas Sirk ~ Van Heflin, Patricia Neal, Gigi Perreau, Tommy Rettig

Often-told tale of a single father meeting and falling in love with a single mother, planning to wed despite the fact their mutual children do not get along. Van Heflin and Patricia Neal are certainly well-matched in the leads, and Heflin in particular gives a sharply-observed performance, but contrivances take over Joseph Hoffman's script and the whole pre-sitcom venture soon runs aground. Nice opening, several very good scenes, but ultimately nothing special. Aimed at wholesome family audiences of the 1950s (who may have felt TV's "The Brady Bunch" some 18 years later was but a retread), this passes muster as nostalgia, but it isn't a memorable vehicle for either star. ** from ****

In a Sirk film nothing is quite as it seems. Am I alone in finding rather more going on here under the surface, than might have been expected from a 'family fun' B-picture?

As we'd expect from Sirk, everything is kept tight, the actors take their chances well - not least the two, far from stereotyped house servants, played by Frances E. Williams and Elvia Allman - and there is plenty of genuinely funny comedy, primarily some well-timed phyiscal slapstick from Van Heflin.

Underneath the predictable family ingredients, there is some slightly less genial critique of middle-class American life and love going on. The mockery of Richard Denning's vegan 'Tarzan' character is sustained and trenchant, as is the far from flattering portrait of Virginia Field's careerist TV personality - women, it seems have to know their place in America's safe but stuffy 1950s society.

Yet the ironies are multiplied by the awful emotional ineptness of the two main characters - their idea of how to break the news of their engagement to their children would have seemed as horrific then as now. The 'fun' of American camp life, one step away from natural disaster, sends shivers down the spine. And at the climax, the still moment where Heflin's elder daughter (Gigi Perreau) gives her infantile father a lesson in emotional intelligence comes as a touching tension breaker - this is the first time we've seen any of the characters react or behave in a 'responsible' way. And it takes a child to get the adult to see the truth.

Perhaps I am alone, but I found Sirk's multi-layered social comedy fascinating, like peeling a workaday onion to find a diamond at its heart.

Perhaps the only Sirk movie which was aimed at the children's market ; the grown -up children would play an important part in his canon ;and they would often become selfish and even cruel when they grew up;in "all that Heaven allows" , they buy Jane Wyman a TV set so she will have the whole world in her hand and not marry the undistinguished uneducated gardener; in "there's always tomorrow" and "All I desire",children epitomize "adult moral" and keep their elders on the straight and narrow;"they keep the adults in the cages which society has prepared for them"(Sirk);in "imitation of life" a daughter disowns her mom because she wants to pass off as white and it leads to tragedy.

Already, in "week-end" ,children impose their vision , models provided by the society: the girls dream of movie stardom ,so a glamorous TV star is more attractive than a simple mother of two ; as for the boys ,virility is represented by beefcake counselor Don : what can oafish Van Heflin do against this dynamic superman? In spite of his unbearable self-assurance ,one can note that Don is ahead of his time,as far as health food is concerned : the future would prove him right.

Sirk's movie is thoroughly enjoyable and more meaningful than it may appear at first sight: when Brad boasts about his prowess as a boy scout, the boy removes the markers ;it becomes symbolic: their would be future parents take the wrong way ,whereas they think they are on the right way,they do not have to heed their own children's call .

The more Brad tries to resemble his children's model,the more he fails : during the sports contest , Van helflin loses on all accounts ;the girls discover that their icon is in love with herself , only interested in the autographs she signs and in her stardom ;she's a career-woman where children have no room.

And do not miss the ironical final slap at the so-called he-man.

Weekend With Father has Van Heflin as a widower father with two small girls Gigi and Janine Perreau who meets war widow Patricia Neal sending her boys Tommy Rettig and Jimmy Hunt off to the adjoining summer camp that Heflin is sending his kids. As things happen in the movies Van and Pat fall for each other and decide getting married could solve a lot of needs. That is if the kids will accept these chosen step parents.

There's also another complication. Heflin is a TV producer and TV star Virginia Field has matrimony in mind for herself. As for Neal the head counselor at her boy's camp is Richard Denning who thinks he's God's gift to the female species and spends the whole picture with his shirt off impressing the ladies. He's got in mind to impress Neal and show up Heflin who as he puts it was an Eagle Scout, but earned it in Central Park.

Some of Heflin's efforts at outdoor activities were clearly borrowed from Cary Grant/Myrna Loy comedy The Bachelor And The Bobby Soxer. I believe this is Heflin's only screen comic part and he puts in a good effort. As does Neal and the rest of the cast. I have to say among the supporting players Denning as this blow-hard camp counselor borrows a bit from the Jack Carson school of blow-hard and it shows well.

Weekend With Father holds up nicely after over 60 years and it's good family entertainment.