Penny Serenade

Dir. George Stevens

119 Minutes

USA

1941

Starring: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Beulah Bondi, Edgar Buchanan, Ann Doran

***/*****

Following the loss of a pregnancy after an earthquake, a married couple (Irene Dunne, Cary Grant) decide to adopt. A series of heartbreaking set-backs test their abilities as a couple. The film settles into a rhythm of "happy occasion, awful occasion" almost to the point where you continue to wait for the other shoe to drop at all times (and a framing device where Dunne, having decided to move out, listens to records and recalls the narrative does not help, especially when it seems like, for a moment, everything will "work out"). And it runs the risk of taking pleasure in their misfortunes, at least on a screenplay level (I was somewhat brought back to some of my critiques of the later Edward, My Son, though that film consists of misfortunes of the characters own making whereas here the two are beholden to a kind of cruel screenwriter). But Dunne and Grant are particularly strong here, and Grant gets a beautifully delivered monologue as his centerpiece that nearly managed to choke me up. Also some very nice work from Edgar Buchanan as a friend/work companion of the couple. Moments do border on the saccharine, but the two push past them and give a little bit of truth to the situations (a late scene where the two go to a Christmas play, a traumatic space for them, and Dunne breaks as she says "let's get out of here" gives the scene a nice weight when it was otherwise an awful coincidence). And the ending is a nice relief, if perhaps a little bit of a fantasy. But after this dramatic ride, even a fantasy feels appropriate than what reality may have brought.

August 25th, 2019