I love this movie so much

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fresh and Exciting

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

So the title card claims, and it's based on a play by Maxwell Anderson, a distinguished American playwright who tackled tough subjects--fascism, apartheid, congressional dysfunction. I don't know this play, but whatever it was, the Epstein brothers utterly standardized it in their thin- blooded adaptation, a weak domestic drama where co-workers John Garfield and Anne Shirley meet, fall in love, marry, and suffer small-people problems. He's polite and mild-mannered and uninteresting, and she's pure ingenue, and watching them trod along the well-worn path of conventional screen romance has no bite. Even Claude Rains, as her father, seems disengaged. At least Lee Patrick, as her scheming sister, and Roscoe Karns, as her cynical brother-in-law, provide a little bite, and George Tobias is on the periphery, playing what he always played. But, despite an attempted suicide, a hidden pregnancy, and penny-ante deceptions in the young pair's marriage, it's slow, repetitive, and unfelt. And it needs edge. Oh, how it needs edge.

Young couple struggle to make their marriage work. He's a dreamer (aren't they always) and she tricked him into marriage in the first place (ugh). This movie offered nothing that I haven't seen before. The characters whine a lot and it got on my nerves. Then there's the speeches. So many I lost count. The cast looks great on paper but mostly disappoints. John Garfield is one big sad sack of gullible self-pity. Anne Shirley, an actress I absolutely adore, can do little to redeem her character. She starts out likable enough but once her wretched sister gets in her ear, she becomes a manipulative brat. At least she's pretty to look at. On the plus side, there's Claude Rains and he's always great to watch. Maybe I'm being too hard on it. The story and characters are sincere enough. I've seen many of these "plight of the young married couple" movies from the time, many from years before this film. But the staginess and dated ideas make it all seem pretty tired.

The director of this film died recently as we was approaching 100. Dennie Moore, who plays the common Gertie, with a typical Brooklyn accent, turns 99 in December.Wonderful seeing John Garfield in a non-gangster role. As the sympathetic Sims, an inventor whose a dreamer, Garfield etches a totally believable character. Anne Shirley plays the girl who loves and tricks him into marriage.Garfield plays basically another George Bailey type. The opportunities are there for him but situations arise which prevent him from fulfilling his dreams.Claude Rains plays his philosophical father-in-law who plots to do away with himself so that Garfield and Shirley can live happily ever after.The two work in the same office, fall in love and marry. With the coming of war, she gets laid off and he is asked to take a pay cut.Sad but realistic. This true to life film does end happily.

It should go like this: Monday's child is fair of face Tuesday's child is full of grace Wednesday's child is full of woe Thursday's child has far to go Friday's child is loving and giving Saturday's child must work for a living and the child that is born on the sabbath day is bonny and blithe and good and gay. I'm not sure why Jack Warner didn't catch this. It seems that to use the title to begin with presumes knowledge of the poem (I for one have to run through the entire thing in order to make sure myself. "Work for a living" also seems to fit better with the theme of the movie-- not that it matters though since the author came up with the title to begin with.