Les Cinq Gosses d'oncle Johnny

This hideous "heart-warmer" opens with William Holden in blackface and singing songs (he's dubbed) to sell snake oil to the rubes in turn-of-the-century Kentucky. While his partner (Charles Winninger) is arrested, he escapes to Mudville, where he runs across five orphans living in a shack.

Of course he moves in and pretends to be their Uncle Johnny. When a do-gooder (Coleen Gray) comes by, she demands they be sent to school. Slowly, Holden gets sucked into their lives more and more and eventually gets a job as a singing waiter (he's still dubbed) in a beer garden. He's nearly coerced into marrying a local spinster, but you can already guess the ending.

Holden had an odd contract deal with Paramount by which Columbia bought half his contract. This is one of the last clunkers he made for Columbia, and it was released a few months before the release of the film that made him a superstar: SUNSET BOULEVARD.

Holden is incredibly miscast in this pap. Others in the film include Stu Erwin, Sig Ruman, Clinton Sundberg, Lillian Bronson, Peggy Converse, Willie Best, and Billy Gray with his harmonica.

If you watched this film and knew nothing about William Holden, you'd likely be shocked to learn that he become a mega-star only a few years after making "Father is a Bachelor". Now I am not saying this because the film is bad...but it is very slight and the sort of film that seems to have nothing to do with Holden's later, grittier films (such as "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Stalag 17") seem so incredibly different and earthier. Instead, this film is almost like a Disney family film of the 1960s.

The movie begins with Johnny (Holden) singing. However, it's obviously not him singing...and he's in black face!! He's apparently part of a traveling medicine show and they are shysters. But when they run out of town with the law behind them, the law doesn't recognize Johnny without his makeup and he gets away and takes up refuge with some orphan kids. Their parents recently were killed and they have been able to scrape by...but how much longer will it be until the law also looks at them? And, what will happen when Johnny finds he's actually falling for the kids and wants to do right by them?

This is just a nice and cute film....nothing more and nothing less. Light, easy viewing and a movie that's hard to hate.

Father Is A Bachelor marked the end of what William Holden termed his 'Smiling Jim' roles. His next film would be for Paramount and would be Sunset Boulevard which forever changed his screen image. This film was done for his other studio master, Columbia.

When it was decided that Columbia would have next call on his services for Father Is A Bachelor, Holden must have brought over the script from Paramount because if there ever was a Bing Crosby picture that Bing didn't do, this was it. This actually might have been a classic had Crosby done this over at Paramount.

Bill Holden for the one and only time in a film sang although not with his voice. The voice of Buddy Clark who was one of the great radio singers back in the day and rival of Bing Crosby was the voice that Holden used. Holden/Clark sang about eight numbers all public domain stuff. Had it been done at Paramount Burke-Van Heusen or Livingston- Evans would have done an original score for Crosby.

Buddy Clark was heard posthumously coming out of Bill Holden's mouth. He was killed in a private plane crash in the fall of 1949. Clark was also the singing voice of Jack Haley in Wake Up And Live and he had one of the most pleasant voices to listen to ever.

The story has Holden singing in black-face the opening number in a medicine show run by Charles Winninger. One of the crowd recognizes Winninger as a guy who bilked a few customers a time or two before. Though the black-face is demeaning to black people it actually serves a purpose in the plot because after Holden has wiped off the burnt cork, no one recognizes him and he's free while Winninger is in the slam.

But he doesn't stay free for long because the free and easy Holden gets involved with a family of five orphans who are trying to stay together and avoid an orphanage or being divided up with several families.

Coleen Gray is Holden's love interest in this film, she's the daughter of Lloyd Corrigan the judge who Winninger is before. Stu Erwin is the sheriff and the orphans are Gary Gray, Billy Gray, Wayne Farlow, Warren Farlow, and Mary Jane Saunders. Sig Ruman has a nice part as the owner of a beer garden who employs Holden as a singing waiter.

The biggest crisis in the film comes from the closest thing to a villain in the piece, sleazy lawyer Clinton Sundberg. He finds out that Holden is really no kin to those kids and he offers him a choice, marry one of old maid sisters either Peggy Converse or Lillian Bronson, either one doesn't make any difference to him. It's quite a pickle Holden's got himself in.

Father Is A Bachelor is a nice family entertainment film, but it was also the kind of film Holden was trying to get out of doing and succeeded magnificently in his next work. Besides though Holden was good, he certainly was poaching on the territory of Der Bingle.

As a fan of William Holden, I can't say this is one of his better films, but it is entertaining enough if you can get past the dubbing of his singing voice. "Born Yesterday" and "Sunset Boulevard" would be released in the same year (1950).

Holden plays Johnny Rutledge, a self-described loafer who says, "The prettiest girl in the world couldn't get me--I'm woman-proof!" But he manages to get hitched to five orphaned siblings and finds himself settling into respectability and facing responsibility.

He does his best to provide for the kids. He even tries to sew a dress for the little girl May (Mary Jane Saunders) with comic results. Eventually, he realizes that a mother figure might be useful in bringing up children.

I think Mary Jane Saunders is one of the highlights of this film. She reminds me of Shirley Temple--cute and bright.

This is very light fare. There's even a scene where a life-altering decision is decided on the flip of a coin.

I`m a huge William Holden fan and I enjoyed this film very much.I like the nostalgic American mid-west turn of the century time setting of the film.Bill Holden has great interaction with the children-his true gentle sweetness when singing "In The Gloaming" as a lullabye to the little girl shines through.The scene with Bill trying to sew the little girl a dress from a pattern is hysterical.Buddy Clark did a wonderful job of dubbing his voice to match Bill Holden`s-if I didn`t know better,I would swear it was Bill singing. A nice family film with great sentimental, turn of the century songs with a wonderful, funny, sweet performance from Bill Holden.Its a shame Columbia has never released this on video or DVD.I obtained my copy from a private collector.