Welcome to the new week at AnchoredScraps.com! With Father’s Day approaching, I wanted to kick-off the week with remembering the movie “Life with Father“. This classic family movie is set in 1883 in New York.
This movie will be new to some of you, forgotten by some of you, and may include a few nodding knowing smiles recalling it from the rest of you. William Powell plays a stockbroker, Clarence Day, attempting to run his household with the same meticulous efficiency that he runs his office. And it also stars Irene Dunne as his wife. The movie was made in 1947. The family is intent on having the Dad baptized. The son (who is infatuated with a young Elizabeth Taylor) – it is his autobiography (by Clarence Day, Jr.) the movie is based on remembering his Dad.
One of the things I remember about this movie is the mad-cap budget mindedness that Irene Dunne has for how she pays for things to run the house and how poor William Powell just shakes his head in reconciling the logic of it. The movie builds on itself and you will leave with a fond smile with the final scene. In confirming some of the details for today’s post I was able to figure out Irene Dunne made this movie a year before the movie “I Remember Mama” was made (which we covered here on Mother’s Day) – I had not realized she was in both films!
Photo upper left: Irene Dunne and William Powell in the film Life with Father (1947) – cropped screenshot. Attribution: By film screenshot (Warner Bros.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
In 1975 the film “Life with Father” and its audio entered the public domain. It runs almost two hours in length. The movie was made in Technicolor so it is not one that was later colorized. The time piece of the movie includes seeing the introduction of a telephone into their home and electricity starting to creep into peoples homes. I envision Irene Dunne sitting there at her classic secretary desk writing to have family come visit them (including Elizabeth Taylor).
How about you? Can you envision writing a autobiography about your family one day and having it made into a classic movie generations from now will be watching? Writing our stories is part of that process – it could be you!
As a reminder – be sure to get your Father’s Day card into the mail if you have not already. It is going to be a fast paced week and you will be glad you went ahead and got it into the mail now! Enjoy the film!
Anchors Aweigh,
Helen
