Father is a Bachelor (1950)

Father is a Bachelor (Dir: Norman Foster & Abby Berlin, 1950).

William Holden stars in this lightweight family comedy from Columbia Pictures. 

 

Father is a Bachelor unfortunately and inauspiciously begins with Holden blacked up giving a rendition of  period ditty Wait 'til the Sun Shines, Nellie. Not the best. But let's remember that in 1950 this was an acceptable form of entertainment and was not intended to cause upset or controversy. Still, myself, and I would presume most modern viewers, could do without it. However I am no advocate for censoring old movies and if Columbia wished to slap a cautionary note at the top of the movie I would applaud them for it. On with the show...

Self-confessed loafer Johnny Rutledge (William Holden) becomes unwitting foster father to five river bottom orphaned waifs. Meanwhile he becomes romantically involved with judge's daughter Prudence Millett (Coleen Gray) who, with the kids, transforms him from medicine show shyster to attentive family man. 

Any movie that opens with an outdated and cringe-worthy blackface song and dance number can only improve as it goes on, right? Wrong! While the remaining 80 minutes of the feature are nowhere near as offensive as the first 5, its sickly sweet combination of saccharine sitcom and tow haired orphans may prove too much for the weak stomached.

William Holden is miscast and appears uninterested in a role too trivial for the rapidly rising star, and it is to Columbia Pictures' detriment that they continued to cast him in such undemanding fluff at this stage of his career. As Holden's love interest, little is required of Coleen Gray other than look pretty while gazing coyly upon him. This she does proficiently but the romance is so insipid you could mistake it for a casual acquaintance. The kids, with the cutesy names of Jan, Feb, March - you get the idea - are Hollywood kids of the most cloying kind. Of no help to the cast is the cornball dialogue and obvious plotting of Aleen Leslie and James Edward Grant flimsy screenplay. Precious little actually happens in the movie; what slight story there is a stretched out to an agonising 85 minutes which tested both my attention span and my sitting still skills. 

While not strictly speaking a musical, the movie does feature a brace of folksy musical intervals with perhaps the most unconvincing vocal dubbing of a Hollywood star. While a seemingly bored Holden is just about believable as the shiftless drifter who finds redemption, his silky baritone singing voice is about as far removed from the actor's distinctive speaking voice as is possible. 

Astonishingly it took not one but two directors to bring this tripe to the big screen. Norman Foster would later make a useful contribution to Walt Disney Productions' live-action division with frontier actioner Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (N Foster, 1955) and multiply episodes of the Zorro (1957-1959) TV series. Abby Berlin, meanwhile, was nearing the end of a movie career consisting mostly of Blondie and Dagwood B-movie comedies but would continue as director for hire on numerous TV productions. Neither bring any discernible style to proceeding here. 

Father is a Bachelor marks a definite low point in Mr Holden's career; surprisingly released the same year and just prior to his triumphant turns in classics Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950) and Born Yesterday (George Cukor, 1950). While Holden was never less than watchable, this must rank as one of his worst pictures. If, like myself, you are an admirer of his work. then by all means give the movie watch as he is really the only interesting thing about it. Otherwise you are well advised to give this barely palatable picture a wide berth.