For my last article on not-your-usual Christmas movies, I offer a double feature starring Ginger Rogers. Unfortunately, one of the films, I’ll Be Seeing You, aired on TCM yesterday, December 21, before I had a chance to post this recommendation. Hopefully, some of you caught it or have watched it previously. The second film, Bachelor Mother, is scheduled for Christmas Day at 9:30 am. Though different in genre and tone, the films make a good double feature because they are both set at Christmas, and they are both thought-provoking.
Released in 1944, I’ll Be Seeing You is a lesser-known romantic melodrama that must have been heart-wrenching for war-weary viewers of the day. Rogers plays convict Mary Marshall on leave from prison for the holidays. On the train home to Pine Hill, she meets soldier Zachary Morgan, played by Joseph Cotten. Because they are attracted to each other, they are reluctant to reveal their true circumstances. Mary claims to be a traveling saleslady, while Zachary hides the fact that he has just been released from the hospital after suffering from shell-shock. Mary invites Zachary to dinner at her aunt and uncle’s house, marking the beginning of a hesitant romance.
MARY AND ZACHARY ENJOY A HOME-COOKED MEAL AND A BREAK FROM THEIR TROUBLES.
I’ll Be Seeing You offers a sympathetic view of deeply wounded people who struggle to re-adapt to normal society. While treating alienated souls with compassion fits the Christmas spirit, it makes for a dark tone for a holiday movie. The film is filled with the tension of self-conscious exchanges and hesitant conversations inherent in the awkward social situations faced by the scarred characters. Mary tries to fit into her aunt and uncle’s household, and they try to accept her while all put on a pleasant face. Mary, who sleeps in the same room as her young cousin Barbara (Shirley Temple), comes home to find the teen writing her name in her clothes and belongings. In a heartbreaking exchange, Mary realizes that Barbara believes she might steal something because, after all, she is a convict. It’s then that Mary reveals to Barbara—and us—why she is serving six years in prison. As a secretary to a wealthy business owner, Mary had agreed to go to his house for a party, only to discover that she was the only guest. When he tried to maul her (read as rape), she accidentally pushed him out the window. Given the era, and the Production Code, I was surprised at the reason for her imprisonment, which acknowledges the sexual harassment women have always faced in the work force.
BARBARA FEARS MARY MIGHT TAKE SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T BELONG TO HER.
Zachary suffers from shell-shock, which is what post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was called back in the day. As Zach and Mary fall in love, and he adapts to living in society, reminders of his war experiences threaten to set him back. Admitting the long-term emotional toll of battle while the war was still going on went against the tide of most Hollywood war dramas, which were dedicated to fighting the war on the home front.
I’ll Be Seeing You is a melodrama, meaning it is rife with sentiment and obvious emotion like all melodrama from the Golden Age, but I found the characters’ problems and issues to be surprisingly contemporary.
NIVEN AND ROGERS WITH DIRECTOR KANIN
Bachelor Mother is notable as Ginger Rogers’s first film after leaving behind the musicals she had done with Fred Astaire. This screwball comedy proved a good vehicle for her star image as the working-class girl with a good heart and a good sense of humor. Snappy and charming, the film is a minor romantic comedy best remembered as a showcase for Rogers. However, as a social document, the film reflects uneasy tensions regarding job security and an uncomfortable subtext about gender roles. Rogers stars as Polly Parrish, who is fired from her job at Merlin’s Department Store on December 24. During her lunch hour, she discovers a baby on the doorstep of a home for foundlings. The adoption authorities at the home believe the baby to be hers even though she insists that it is not. They go to the store and ask David Merlin, son of the owner, to reinstate Polly so she can take care of “her” baby. When Polly returns home that evening, the do-gooders thrust the baby into her arms. Polly can dissuade no one—including David Merlin (David Niven)—that she is not the unwed mother of the baby boy. Scriptwriter Norman Krasna, who also penned The Devil and Miss Jones, Bride by Mistake, and It Started with Eve, had a knack for comedies of masquerade and mistaken identity. Director Garson Kanin, best known as a writer of romantic comedy, proved adept at milking certain comic situations, including the New Year’s Eve sequence in which Polly pretends to be Swedish.
POLLY WORKS AT THE TOY COUNTER AT MERLIN’S WHERE DONALD DUCK IS THE BIG CHRISTMAS TOY OF THE SEASON.
When Bachelor Mother was released in 1939, the Depression was still lurking on the country’s doorstep; not surprisingly, the film reflects the instability of employment and underlying desperation to earn cash. When Polly loses her job, she agrees to participate in a dance contest with a fellow employee because she needs the money. When they win, she is distraught because the prize is a gold cup, not cash. Unemployment is a constant threat in the film as jobs and promotions are granted by Merlin and his managers, then taken away at the drop of a hat. Employees are encouraged to sell merchandise but are held accountable for its return. Fear over jobs and promotions depict the workplace as a constant source of anxiety in a way department-store comedies from the previous decade did not.
AUTHORITIES REFUSE TO BELIEVE POLLY ABOUT THE BABY.
Most interesting is the premise of the film, which dances around the idea of an unwed mother. In the pre-Code era, which coincided with the worst years of the Depression, single-mother melodramas dominated the big screen. Female protagonists were duped, manipulated, and seduced by weak or unscrupulous men, resulting in pregnancy and abandonment by the fathers. The mothers were depicted sympathetically and the males were painted as rogues or cads. Often the mothers were forced to give up their kids for their own welfare, which reflected the realities of the Depression. After the Production Code was enforced, storylines with unwed mothers were scarce, and motherhood was depicted as a saintly goal for all leading female characters.
POLLY ENTERS A DANCE CONTEST HOPING FOR PRIZE MONEY.
However, Bachelor Mother does not just follow the Code; it plays with it by tweaking the single-mother storyline. While a melodrama about an unwed mother would be frowned upon by the Production Code Administration, a romantic comedy about a woman who is mistaken for an unwed mother was alright. Most subversive is the fact that only the viewer and Polly ever know the truth, and this remains true to the very end. The misunderstanding about Polly’s status is not cleared up, and the mystery behind the baby is never resolved. So despite being a fallen woman, Polly keeps the baby and gets to marry the handsome, wealthy guy. It’s an example of the cake-and-eat-it-too approach to sex that the best writers of the Golden Age somehow managed to accomplish.
As much as I love Ginger Rogers, and as accepting as I am of old-school gender politics from the Golden Age, there are scenes in this film that make me cringe. The way that Polly is forced to be a mother to the child even though she repeatedly denies giving birth to it disturbs me. No one listens to what she wants or to her side of the story, and her livelihood actually depends on accepting the lie. While that might be subversive in regard to the Code, it seems reactionary in regard to women’s views. I find it difficult to watch Polly’s protestations that she is not the baby’s mother, which are to no avail. There is nothing more condescending than not listening to a woman because she is a woman, yet Krasna and the other writers seem to find this funny. In the film, there is not even a nod toward checking out Polly’s version of events: Polly has to keep the kid and like it. Ultimately, the film’s subtext suggests that women must acquiesce to their role as child-bearers because society (a patriarchy) finds no other course meaningful for them.
OLD MR. MERLIN, PLAYED BY CHARLES COBURN, THINKS THE BABY WAS FATHERED BY DAVID.
Contemporary reviews take pains to point out that later in the film, David Merlin is mistaken for the father of the child by his own father, who is desperate for a grandson and heir. Nothing David can say will change his father’s mind. Now the finger of impropriety is pointed in his direction. The proverbial shoe is on the other foot. Ha, ha, ha. But, that does not level the playing field because the consequences are not the same for a man. Society’s expectations for men are not as rigid, and the damage to their reputations is not as dire.
On the surface, I’ll Be Seeing You seems old-fashioned in its obvious sentiment and melodrama, but the characters’ afflictions and issues make the film relevant to modern audiences; conversely, Bachelor Mother is snappy and lively, which will appeal to modern audiences, but its subtext regarding women is definitely old-fashioned, almost reactionary. But, I recommend both movies because they are not only well-crafted gems but they can still inspire and provoke.
** The remake of Bachelor Mother, which is called Bundle of Joy, airs on December 24 at 7:30am. Best known as a vehicle for Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, the film exhibits the same issues as Bachelor Mother but lacks the original’s energy and terrific supporting cast.