Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

liublok Movie very well represent extremist time, time of religion. Just awful time. I'll show this movie to my children, to show them how was time of extreme religion when people didn't think with their head.

Michael_Elliott Life with Father (1947) *** 1/2 (out of 4) William Powell plays the father, a rather tough man who believes his own reasons on anything are the last answer. This type of attitude pays a tow on his wife (Irene Dunne) as well as his five children but things take a dramatic turn when the wife finds out that he's never been baptized. I'll say right off the bad that this here is a very good movie but I wouldn't come anywhere close to calling it a masterpiece or one of the best of the decade, which seems to be something that a lot say about it. Again, this isn't a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination but I just don't feel it lived up to its reputation. With that said, there's still a lot to enjoy here and I'm somewhat shocked that the film works as well as it did considering there's really not too much to its plot. We basically have a rather stern father making life somewhat tough on everyone around him but slowly by slowly the wife begins to get her way on several things including charge accounts. It's rather funny to think that a film's main selling point is a man needed to get baptized so that he doesn't burn in hell. In fact, there's a rather funny scene where one of the brothers is torturing the other one by saying daddy is going to burn. The performances are certainly what makes the film with Powell turning in one of the greatest pieces of work in his career. I really thought he did a fantastic job becoming this character and not once did you see Powell playing him but instead you feel as if you're watching a real person. Dunne is just as effective, although in a different way as the wife who is made to suffer. The supporting cast includes a lovely Elizabeth Taylor as well as Zasu Pitts in a funny role. For a "comedy" this film really doesn't have many laugh out loud moments but it's more of a laid back comedy that has a few natural laughs here and there. Director Michael Curtiz does a very good job with his work and again, I'm really surprised that the film worked as well as it did considering its slow pacing and slim story. LIFE WITH FATHER isn't a masterpiece but the performance by Powell alone makes it a must see.

mark.waltz He thinks he's king of the roost, but the queen is really the power behind the throne. Father is William Powell, as far from the delightfully drunken Nick Charles as he can be, and mother is Irene Dunne, whom second to Myrna Loy could be called the woman every man would love to come home to. Yes, mother may be sweet and apparently submissive, but that's only for show. Behind the scenes, mother knows how to work father so she can get him to do precisely as she wants him to do, especially be baptized! She can passively/aggressively manipulate him without his even knowing it, and she sweetly grins in the all-knowing fact that she has him where she wants him and he still thinks he's in control.That's the subject of this delightful version of the longest running play in Broadway history, colorfully made into a film as if it was a Currier and Ives magazine spread come to life. Once you meet father, you can't help but love him in spite of his imperious attitude, so stiff upper lip you'd swear he was British, not a New Yorker. Powell makes his pompous character very relatable, and with the fact that he's basically a fool unknowingly controlled by his wife, that makes for delicious payback. That's why there ended up being a sequel for Broadway called "Life With Mother", because she's really the ruler of the roost, allowing him his pride by making him think he's really the one in command.Powell and Dunne are surrounded by a wonderful cast which includes a very young Elizabeth Taylor as a young lady who visits with Dunne's dizzy aunt (Zasu Pitts) and upsets older son Jimmy Lydon who just doesn't understand women. Martin Milner ("Adam 12") is recognizable instantly as the second oldest son, while Derek Scott and Johnny Calkins round out the roles of the younger children. I couldn't help but find it humorous to imagine Powell's imperious Clarence Day siring children who here are under 10 years old. Powell's imperiousness with his children covers everything from oatmeal to a new suit for the oldest son, and with his wife such trifles as a rubber tree plant and a porcelain dog. The same year he won screen immortality as Santa Claus in "The Miracle on 24th Street", Edmund Gwenn played another spiritual figure, here the Episcopal priest who is aghast by the fact that one of the congregation's top members has refused to be baptized. This makes the plot seem almost absent, but the whole slice-of-life atmosphere is so delightfully presented and charming, you never realize for the most part that you are watching a two hour movie with basically no story. Then, there's the comical subplot of Powell's imperious attitude over the maids who come and go just like Murphy Brown's secretaries decades later. One maid runs out in horror after crashing down a flight of stairs as if she's just encountered Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff in a darkened corridor.Even with a very serious director (Michael Curtiz) at the helm of this light-hearted picture, everything moves smoothly, and the art direction of the Day house is simply divine. The film also takes the family to the famous Delmonico's Restaurant for a trip into vintage New York high society. Such great character performers as Emma Dunn, Elisabeth Risdon and Clara Blandick pop in for some memorable bits. While the play may not hold up well on stage today, the film takes the audience back to an era of grace and manners long gone from one of the greatest cities in the world.

Karl Ericsson There was a time, when films like this one were "cute". This was before we knew what was really going on in these times and, for that matter, what is still going on. We now know that "cute" is not the right way to describe a mass murderer, even if the guy is so full of himself that he could never understand that it is not all right to treat other people like exploitable trash.The film depicts a time in American history in which the working class hardly reached the age of thirty. They were treated worse than slaves and it was people like this "father" that did the treating.Of course there is not one frame of that in this "cute" movie. Here the problems does not deal with the murder that is going on in the background - way back in the background.What is this movie about? I think it is lies, lies and republicans. It is about wasting your life and dedicate it to evil beyond all evil and on the surface of it all, it is just "cute".The three stars is for William Powell, who plays the villain with gusto.