Father Is a Bachelor

If you watched this film and knew nothing about William Holden, you'd likely be shocked to learn that he become a mega-star only a few years after making "Father is a Bachelor". Now I am not saying this because the film is bad...but it is very slight and the sort of film that seems to have nothing to do with Holden's later, grittier films (such as "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Stalag 17") seem so incredibly different and earthier. Instead, this film is almost like a Disney family film of the 1960s.

The movie begins with Johnny (Holden) singing. However, it's obviously not him singing...and he's in black face!! He's apparently part of a traveling medicine show and they are shysters. But when they run out of town with the law behind them, the law doesn't recognize Johnny without his makeup and he gets away and takes up refuge with some orphan kids. Their parents recently were killed and they have been able to scrape by...but how much longer will it be until the law also looks at them? And, what will happen when Johnny finds he's actually falling for the kids and wants to do right by them?

This is just a nice and cute film....nothing more and nothing less. Light, easy viewing and a movie that's hard to hate.

This hideous "heart-warmer" opens with William Holden in blackface and singing songs (he's dubbed) to sell snake oil to the rubes in turn-of-the-century Kentucky. While his partner (Charles Winninger) is arrested, he escapes to Mudville, where he runs across five orphans living in a shack.

Of course he moves in and pretends to be their Uncle Johnny. When a do-gooder (Coleen Gray) comes by, she demands they be sent to school. Slowly, Holden gets sucked into their lives more and more and eventually gets a job as a singing waiter (he's still dubbed) in a beer garden. He's nearly coerced into marrying a local spinster, but you can already guess the ending.

Holden had an odd contract deal with Paramount by which Columbia bought half his contract. This is one of the last clunkers he made for Columbia, and it was released a few months before the release of the film that made him a superstar: SUNSET BOULEVARD.

Holden is incredibly miscast in this pap. Others in the film include Stu Erwin, Sig Ruman, Clinton Sundberg, Lillian Bronson, Peggy Converse, Willie Best, and Billy Gray with his harmonica.

As a fan of William Holden, I can't say this is one of his better films, but it is entertaining enough if you can get past the dubbing of his singing voice. "Born Yesterday" and "Sunset Boulevard" would be released in the same year (1950).

Holden plays Johnny Rutledge, a self-described loafer who says, "The prettiest girl in the world couldn't get me--I'm woman-proof!" But he manages to get hitched to five orphaned siblings and finds himself settling into respectability and facing responsibility.

He does his best to provide for the kids. He even tries to sew a dress for the little girl May (Mary Jane Saunders) with comic results. Eventually, he realizes that a mother figure might be useful in bringing up children.

I think Mary Jane Saunders is one of the highlights of this film. She reminds me of Shirley Temple--cute and bright.

This is very light fare. There's even a scene where a life-altering decision is decided on the flip of a coin.

Johnny Rutledge (William Holden) works for traveling snake oil salesman Professor Mordecai Ford. The professor gets imprisoned for thirty days. Rutledge intends to wait for his release. He encounters five young children living in a cabin with no parents. Rutledge and the kids pretend that he's their uncle. School teacher Prudence Millett takes an interest in him and the kids.

Stranger danger aside, this is a rather nice and sweet movie. The kids are cute. Even the con men are sweet. The one bad guy has a redemption story arc. It's all very sweet.

At the moment I'm watching "Father is a Bachelor" on TCM. I think it is a movie well worth issuing on DVD ... its audience potentially is great ... especially for those parents who would want their children to see an appealing film without gratuitous violence and sex as can be the case even in today's PG films. Who makes decisions about which films to reissue? I would like to find out. One person who previously commented mentioned the person who dubbed the singing. Both the singer and William Holden made it look very real, the singer by matching his vocal quality to Holden's speaking voice and Holden by perfectly matching his mouth and facial expressions to the music. A charming and sweet movie. Not the norm for this star, whose roles hardly ever involved children but were dramatic and sometimes violent. Then there are the children portrayed in the film ... not the pseudo-sophisticated worldly, overly made-up kids that today are often shown as far wiser than their parents. I can truly appreciate those qualities in a movie.