…………………………………………………

Penny Serenade Movie Review

Penny Serenade is a 1941 melodrama film directed by George Stevens and starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. Its ending is bad, but the rest of the movie is quite lovely.

………………………………………………….

“We don’t need each other anymore.

When that happens to two people, there’s nothing left“

…………………………………………………..

…………………………………………………..

It’s about a couple who faces adversity when adopting their child. This is a rare film from this period that deals with adoption and the many issues facing those who embark on this journey, and for that I will congratulate Stevens and his team for making such a wonderful, modern film with a great message for all the young parents out there.

It’s also quite interesting to see that even in the forties the adoption process was very rigorously legislated, the most important element being the economic prosperity of the parents. The whole process that the couple goes through to adopt was so fascinating to follow and emotionally rewarding when they finally got a child.

However, that ending was just ludicrous. Suddenly, their daughter dies of unexplained illness and they adopt a boy this time around. All of it rang false, unrealistic and simply overly melodramatic for the sake of being melodramatic. The movie did not need that level of drama this late in the game, and it would have been much greater had they finished the story twenty minutes earlier.

The acting is uniformly amazing here and it just might be the highlight of the picture. Beulah Bondi is lovely in the role of Miss Oliver while both Irene Dunne and Cary Grant excelled at playing Julie and Roger. Dunne is her usual charming self and she sold all of her touching scenes while Grant has never played such a serious role, and he did it so confidently, resulting in a deserved Oscar nomination. Both resisted to go into sappy territory, thus countering a script a bit, and saving the whole affair.

…………………………………………………..

…………………………………………………..

Penny Serenade is beautifully filmed, touchingly scored and also very well edited with that structure of matching the plot points through various famous songs being quite memorable and different. I just wish that the runtime was shorter and that they got rid of that dumb ending.

Penny Serenade offers a very early and fascinating glimpse into the adoption process and the many hardships that these parents would face when embarking on such a journey. The movie portrays the whole process with a lot of emotion, but resisting to go into overly sappy territory in no small part thanks to two outstanding performances from Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. Grant was nominated for an Oscar for this rare dramatic role of his. The only problem here is that overly melodramatic, ludicrous ending that should have been cut altogether from the movie.

My Rating – 4