The Story: It's Father's Day today. So, for our regular "Don't Make a Scene" feature, we have one from Michael Curtiz's film of the hit stage play Life with Father from 1947. A staple of film catalogs sold to local television stations "back in the day" (probably because it fell into the public domain), it was one of those films I regularly ignored in the programming black holes of weekends in the time before infomercials and other balderdash.
But it's a great film, funny and wise and before its time, a sort of upper-class "All in the Family" set in the 1883, with an authority figure who sees himself as Lord of the Manor, but who in reality is lord of a house of cards. He is loved and respected (of course), but he's more than a little pedantic, and the joke is that everybody, family, audience, everyone knows he's full of malarkey. Everybody except him.
Now, this scene has an undercurrent running through it, which is one of those veiled references that the adults might get, but will go right over "the kids'" heads, and is rather surprising for the post-Code era of 1947. Clarence Jr. has an advanced yearning for friend of the family Mary Skinner, which leaves him in an advanced state of awkwardness. She is equally smitten, but...
But this is 1883.
Even in the scene before this when Mary and Clarence go out to the balcony—alone—to discuss how they can keep in communication after her leave-taking, he's warned by his Mother, "Remember, this is Sunday."
Things are not helped when she sits on his lap, and he panics: "Get up! Get up! Get up!" She thinks he is alarmed by her behavior, but he's probably more alarmed at his own...if you get my drift.
Yeah, this is about sex, but nobody comes right out and says it, the most being stated is that Clarence, wearing one of his father's old suits, feels uncomfortable in the old thing, as it probably doesn't fit and because in his words, he “can’t do anything in them that father wouldn’t do.”
Oh, gad.
There, then proceeds a lecture about women that is completely off the subject, irrelevant, and very much to the Father's concerns, and when it gets to his son's...the subject is closed. That's the joke. But, it's one of my favorite scenes from this one for what it says, and what it doesn't say.
Apologies for the screen-caps. The source for them is a DVD which has a poor print for the transfer, the usually eye-popping Technicolor is faded, the images soft, very grainy and very multi-generational. I have seen it in all its sharp glory on TCM, but, for now, and probably while it remains in public domain, all DVD versions of it will be terrible.
But it's a great film, funny and wise and before its time, a sort of upper-class "All in the Family" set in the 1883, with an authority figure who sees himself as Lord of the Manor, but who in reality is lord of a house of cards. He is loved and respected (of course), but he's more than a little pedantic, and the joke is that everybody, family, audience, everyone knows he's full of malarkey. Everybody except him.
Now, this scene has an undercurrent running through it, which is one of those veiled references that the adults might get, but will go right over "the kids'" heads, and is rather surprising for the post-Code era of 1947. Clarence Jr. has an advanced yearning for friend of the family Mary Skinner, which leaves him in an advanced state of awkwardness. She is equally smitten, but...
But this is 1883.
Even in the scene before this when Mary and Clarence go out to the balcony—alone—to discuss how they can keep in communication after her leave-taking, he's warned by his Mother, "Remember, this is Sunday."
Things are not helped when she sits on his lap, and he panics: "Get up! Get up! Get up!" She thinks he is alarmed by her behavior, but he's probably more alarmed at his own...if you get my drift.
Yeah, this is about sex, but nobody comes right out and says it, the most being stated is that Clarence, wearing one of his father's old suits, feels uncomfortable in the old thing, as it probably doesn't fit and because in his words, he “can’t do anything in them that father wouldn’t do.”
Oh, gad.
There, then proceeds a lecture about women that is completely off the subject, irrelevant, and very much to the Father's concerns, and when it gets to his son's...the subject is closed. That's the joke. But, it's one of my favorite scenes from this one for what it says, and what it doesn't say.
Apologies for the screen-caps. The source for them is a DVD which has a poor print for the transfer, the usually eye-popping Technicolor is faded, the images soft, very grainy and very multi-generational. I have seen it in all its sharp glory on TCM, but, for now, and probably while it remains in public domain, all DVD versions of it will be terrible.
The Set-Up: The Day household is in turmoil. And the problems usually concern the head of the household who rules with an iron hand—Clarence Day, Sr (William Powell), who seems to think he has everything under control, and has nothing under control. A stockbroker by trade, a malcontent by habit, he is subtly pushed and prodded by the demands of his loving and respectful family. In this scene, oldest son Clarence, Jr. (Jimmy Lydon) has just talked to the girl he's got a crush on, Mary Skinner (Elizabeth Taylor) about keeping up a correspondence after she leaves that day. And as these things can go, it goes badly, especially when Mary sits of young Day's lap, sending him into a panic and putting her into rejected hysterics, which Day Sr can't help but notice as she runs through his office.
Action!
CLARENCE JR: I’m sorry, father, it’s completely my fault.
CLARENCE JR: Oh..n-n-no, she wasn’t.
It was all my fault.
CLARENCE JR: What does, father?
CLARENCE JR: Stand for what?
CLARENCE SENIOR: They do!
CLARENCE JR: Who, sir?
CLARENCE SENIOR: Exactly!
CLARENCE JR: But, if you do watch out and know just how to handle women...
CLARENCE JR: I see.
CLARENCE SENIOR: About what?
Words by David Ogden Stewart (from the play by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse from the book by Clarence Day)
Pictures by J. Peverell Marley, William V. Skall and Michael Curtiz
Life with Father is available on DVD from Alpha Video.
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