OVP: Bachelor Mother (1939)

Film: Bachelor Mother (1939)
Stars: Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn, Frank Albertson
Director: Garson Kanin
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Motion Picture Story)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I interact a lot with "Film Twitter," a subset of the social media platform that focuses on movies, frequently related to awards season & the classical era of Hollywood.  In doing so, you discover a lot of hidden gems, and occasionally find people who put your own (over-zealous) movie-watching habits to shame.  You also learn that your own prejudices against certain old-time movie stars are not universally held.  I have not really found the right role to love Ginger Rogers, something that I'm in the minority here (she seems quite popular on Film Twitter), but she's not my cup-of-tea.  Her performances are too earnest, her dramatics paling to someone like Barbara Stanwyck or Joan Crawford.  But I'm open to new ideas, and always game for liking Rogers more than I currently do, and Bachelor Mother might have posed a turning point for me.  I loved this movie, even if it was as shallow as a teaspoon, and Rogers (with the help of David Niven) might be finally turning me around on her specific set of talents.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is short, so not a lot of plot, but here goes.  Polly (Rogers) is a salesgirl at the John B. Merlin and Son company in New York City.  She loses her job as a temporary sales clerk after the holidays, but on her way home she discovers a baby that someone has left on the steps of an orphanage.  Through a confusion that could only happen in the movies, the orphanage, as well as "the son" of her department store's name, David (Niven), assume the baby is hers, and it's born out-of-wedlock.  Not wanting to fire an unwed mother, and make her give up her baby, David rehires her, and starts to show an interest in this woman who keeps claiming the baby isn't hers.  As the film goes on, Polly & David start to fall in love, and David's father (Coburn) assumes the baby is his new grandson.  In the end, David claims the baby is his, making his father happy that he finally gets to be a grandfather, and Polly gets the untraditional family she wanted, having now fallen in love with both David and the baby.

The movie is silly, and if the plot sounds familiar, it was remade in the 1950's as Bundle of Joy with Debbie Reynolds & Eddie Fisher.  But silly is fine if it's done well, and Bachelor Mother is a really lovely little movie.  At this point in his career, Niven would've been teetering between stardom and becoming a high-profile character actor (just a few months before this movie was released, he'd taken on the third-billed Edgar Linton role in Wuthering Heights).  This movie was a major hit, and made him an established star.  There's a reason for that-Rogers & Niven have great chemistry onscreen.  While I always love David Niven in movies, Ginger Rogers steals several scenes from him & this is a plucky side of her that I've never seen done so well in a romantic comedy.  She's delicious when she's playing along as a Swedish girl who is trying to prove to Niven's ex that she's an improvement on her, and even in the film's softer moments she has a warmth that radiates & keeps the movie from going to darker places around her situation (like how, say, we shouldn't think too much on the biological mother who had to give up this baby, as she was likely in the actual scenario that Polly is only hypothetically in).

The film won one Oscar nomination, for Best Motion Picture Story (thus finishing off our theme week of writing nominations at the Oscars).  While the script isn't perfect (it's predictable & Rogers other love interest is underwritten), the story & idea behind are original and charming.  I left Bachelor Mother dually impressed how spry it was, and how a potentially repetitive plot is played for increasing absurdity & laughs.  Bachelor Mother is a good reminder after a week of heavy pictures & across-the-board reviews that movies sometimes work best when they simply allow you to forget your troubles & be entertained.