Happy Birthday, Irene Dunne!

Even if you’re a casual reader of this blog, you know I’m an Irene Dunne fan. Well, today is her birthday, so if you’re looking for some posts on this Hollywood legend, you’ve come to right place. Check out the links below and enjoy!

Irene Dunne Goes "Wild" and Reaches New Heights in Comedy Role
The Not So Awful Truth About “The Awful Truth”
Remembering Irene Dunne in “I Remember Mama”

Irene Dunne in “The White Cliffs of Dover”

Re-Dunne: Original Irene Dunne Films Remade

Irene Dunne Comes of “Age” as Edith Wharton’s Famous Heroine

Been There Dunne That

Well Dunne: From “Queen of the Weepies” to the Queen of Comedy

Classic Film of the Week: “Life With Father”

Irene Dunne and Cary Grant: Making It All Look So Easy

Classic Films in Context: Cimarron 1931

Classic Movies for Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is just around the corner, so I thought I’d suggest five classic films with mothers as the main characters. Several of the movies listed will be familiar to most, but there may be a few you haven’t seen. These films are hardly an exhaustive list and I know I’ve left out some beloved films, but these are all great movies starring true Hollywood legends. Let me know what you think and feel free to offer up your personal Mother’s Day favorites.

Irene Dunne as Marta Hanson

I Remember Mama (1948)—Irene Dunne received her fifth Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her performance in this film. The story is told through the eyes of daughter Katrin (Barbara Bel Geddes). Katrin yearns to be a writer, but can’t seem to write anything worth publishing. That is until she writes about her mother. As Marta Hanson the matriarch of a clan of Norwegian Americans living in San Francisco during the early 1900s, Dunne gives a sensitive and multi-layered characterization. A simple story, simply told, it is both charming and poignant; you’ll find it hard to resist. Dunne was still a beautiful woman when filming began—she was 50, but looked decades younger—so she put on a fat suit, acquired a perfect Norwegian accent, and dressed in simple, worn-looking dresses. The amazing supporting cast includes Ellen Corby, Edgar Bergen, Philip Dorn, Florence Bates, Rudy Vallee, and Oscar Homolka. Directed with a steady hand by George Stevens, I Remember Mama holds up extraordinarily well and is a classic in every sense of the word. Hankie Alert: One, but it will be wringing wet!

Joan Crawford (left) and Ann Blyth play mother
and daughter in Mildred Pierce.

Mildred Pierce (1945)—Joan Crawford stars in the title role as a mother determined to be successful in the business world. After divorcing her husband Bert (Bruce Bennett), Mildred works hard to support her children as a waitress. She learns the restaurant business inside and out, eventually saving enough money to open Mildred’s, a restaurant of her own. Soon she has a small chain of restaurants and Mildred is riding high. But nothing can satisfy her spoiled eldest daughter Veda (Ann Blyth). Veda is a social-climbing snob who resents her mother’s middle-class roots. No matter what Mildred does for Veda, it just isn’t enough. As the self-sacrificing mother, Crawford won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Based on the novel by James M. Cain, Mildred Pierce is an engrossing film told from the woman’s point of view. Warner Brothers’s top director, Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), ably supported Crawford. A great supporting cast that includes Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, and Eve Arden, all doing great work here, only adds to the fun. Hankie Alert: One.

Barbara Stanwyck as Stella Dallas

Stella Dallas (1937)—Barbara Stanwyck in the title role, plays the ultimate self-sacrificing mother in this classic directed by King Vidor. As a poor girl who marries up only to find out that life at the top isn’t exactly what she thought it would be, Stanwyck is amazing. In the hands of a less talented actress, this film could have been one big hot, sentimental mess. When Stanwyck marries the richest guy in town, she is disillusioned with society life and finds it constraining. After she gives birth to a baby girl, her husband Stephen (John Boles) has society expectations that Stella rebels against. Divorced, Stella raises her daughter Laurel (Anne Shirley) on her own. When Stephen enters a relationship with an upper-class widow, Laurel is introduced to a world of refinement and beauty that are hard to resist. Although she loves her mother, the garish way she dresses and how Stella carries on with old family friend Ed Munn (Alan Hale) embarrass Laurel. Stella sees her daughter slowly drifting away and makes a decision that changes both of their lives forever. Hankie Alert: Three, at least.

Dunne and Alan Marshall share a moment
in The White Cliffs of Dover.

The White Cliffs of Dover (1944)—A huge hit when released in 1944, this film isn’t as well remembered today. However, M-G-M thought this film was good enough to be the studio’s 20th Anniversary release. The movie is based on the verse novel The White Cliffs by Alice Duer Miller. Irene Dunne plays Susan Dunn, a young American woman on vacation in England with her father (Frank Morgan). During her visit, she meets John Asherwood (Alan Marshall), a young British officer and titled gentleman. After a brief courtship, they marry. Shortly thereafter, World War I breaks out and John is off to war. Susan loses John just before the war ends, but gives birth to a son, John Jr. As John grows up and the shadow of another world war blankets Europe, Susan fears she will lose her son too. Susan learns that she cannot hold onto John Jr. just like she couldn’t hold onto his father. The film gives us a glimpse of the tragedy of war from a female perspective that is compelling and heartbreaking. Directed by Clarence Brown (National Velvet), the film features some great British actors in supporting roles, including C. Aubrey Smith, Dame May Whitty, Gladys Cooper, and Roddy McDowell. Van Johnson and an unbilled, and very young, Elizabeth Taylor, round out the cast. Hankie Alert: Two, maybe three.

Myrna Loy played the mother of 12 children
in Cheaper By the Dozen.

Cheaper By the Dozen (1950) This film is based on the real life story of efficiency expert Frank Bunker Gilbreth (Clifton Webb) and Lillian Moller Gilbreth (Myrna Loy) and their 12 children! Jeanne Crain plays eldest daughter Ann who narrates the film. Directed by Walter Lang and shot in beautiful Technicolor by the award-winning cinematographer, Leon Shamroy, it’s picture postcard perfect. As the mother of the Gilbreth brood, Loy radiates warmth and charm. One of the most popular films of 1950, Cheaper By the Dozen was followed up with Belles on Their Toes in 1952 starring Crain and Loy. Hankie Alert: Maybe half a hankie. You’ll mostly be smiling during this family classic.

Irene Dunne in “The White Cliffs of Dover”

By 1944, Irene Dunne was one of the top female stars in Hollywood. A four-time Academy Award nominee for Best Actress, she was in demand by all the major Hollywood studios. In 1943, Dunne signed on to star in a picture at Metro Goldwyn Mayer. A Guy Named Joe paired the actress with Spencer Tracy and a young newcomer named Van Johnson. During filming Johnson was involved in a serious car accident. Dunne and Tracy didn’t want to replace Johnson, so production was delayed while he recuperated. Since Dunne was already on the lot, M-G-M scooped her up for The White Cliffs of Dover.

Verse Novel Source for Film
The White Cliffs of Dover is based on a verse novel The White Cliffs by Alice Duer Miller published in 1940. The novel was an instant success and sold almost a million copies. Duer Miller was a popular writer and screenwriter. In fact one of her stories was made into the musical Roberta starring Dunne in 1935.



War-Time Romance

Elizabeth Taylor and Roddy McDowell

The White Cliffs of Dover focuses on a young American woman, Susan Dunn, played by Dunne and her father (the irascible Frank Morgan) who are touring London before the outbreak of World War I. She meets a young British aristocrat and army officer, Sir John Asherwood (Alan Marshall). After a whirlwind courtship they marry, but their honeymoon and marriage is cut short. Susan Dunn Asherwood remains in her adopted country and has a son, John Jr.

Serene and Dignified
The film is told in flashback as Dunne’s character recalls her younger days, while serving as a nurse during World War II. At the beginning of the movie, Dunne plays a young girl of 20, which was quite a stretch since she was 46 years old when the film was released. Even though it’s obvious that Dunne isn’t in her 20s, she captures the spirit of a young woman in both her mannerisms and speech. As the older woman, Dunne is serene and dignified. In his May 12, 1944 review of the film, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther said, “Miss Dunne gives to her character a nice glow of American charm...”

Alan Marshall and Dunne

Like Mrs. Miniver (1942), The White Cliffs of Dover was popular with wartime audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. The novel on which it is based, cemented the relationship between the United States and The United Kingdom, during the war years. The movie cost $2,343,000 to produce, earned $4,045,000 in the U.S. and another $2,249,00 in foreign receipts making it a blockbuster hit and a good choice as the M-G-M 20th Anniversary film.

In a famous photograph of M-G-M movie stars, commemorating its 20th anniversary, Dunne, technically not a studio contract player, is seated in the front row two seats to the right of studio chief, Louis B. Mayer. It’s a tribute to Dunne’s popularity (and Mayer’s keen marketing sense) that she was included in this iconic image.

More stars than are in the heavens: M-G -M celebrates 20 years.
Dunne is in the front row fourth from right.

This post corresponds with the class Elegant and Madcap: The Incredible Versatility of Irene Dunne—Class starts November 16, 2011. Meets on Wednesdays from 7p.m. - 10 p.m. for six weeks. Classes are held at Facets Film School on Fullerton Ave. in Chicago, IL.

Classic Movie Man Teaching at Facets in November

Irene Dunne in I Remember Mama

Stephen Reginald, also known as the Classic Movie Man, will be teaching a class on the films of Irene Dunne at Facets Film School in Chicago. The six-week course begins on Wednesday, November 16, 2011. All classes will meet on Wednesdays, from 7 p.m. – 10 p.m. The last class is December 21.

Regular readers of this blog know that Reginald has admired Dunne’s work in film for some time. He’s written no fewer than three posts on Dunne, including “Been There Dunne That,” and “Well Dunne: From Queen of the Weepies to the Queen of Comedy.”

Reginald’s class will feature some of Dunne’s best known work, including Cimarron, The Awful Truth, and I Remember Mama. The complete list of films screened and discussed is listed below.

• Cimarron (1931) 
• The Age of Innocence (1934)
• Theodora Goes Wild (1936)
• The Awful Truth (1937)
• The White Cliffs of Dover (1944)
• I Remember Mama (1949)

For more information about this class and others at Facets Film School, please visit their Web site.