Penny Serenade
| Penny Serenade | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
|
|
| Directed by | George Stevens |
| Produced by | George Stevens |
| Screenplay by | Morrie Ryskind |
| Based on |
Penny Serenade (1940 McCall's story) by Martha Cheavens |
| Starring | |
| Music by | W. Franke Harling |
| Cinematography | Joseph Walker |
| Edited by | Otto Meyer |
|
Production
company |
|
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
119 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $835,000 |
Penny Serenade is a 1941 film melodrama starring Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Beulah Bondi, and Edgar Buchanan. The picture was directed by George Stevens, written by Martha Cheavens and Morrie Ryskind, and depicts the story of a loving couple who must overcome adversity to keep their marriage and raise a child. Grant was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance.
Applejack Carney pulls from a shelf an album of records entitled "The Story of a Happy Marriage" and places the song "You Were Meant for Me" on the Victrola. Julie Adams, Applejack's old friend and owner of the album, asks him to turn off the tune and announces that she is leaving her husband Roger.
After glancing at the nursery, Julie restarts the song and remembers meeting Roger years earlier: The same ballad is playing over the loudspeakers at the Brooklyn music store where Julie works. When the record begins to skip, passerby Roger Adams enters the store and meets Julie. The two begin to date, and while at the beach one day, Julie breaks open a fortune cookie, which reads "you will get your wish --a baby." Roger, a confirmed bachelor who has no patience with children, hides his fortune, which predicts a "wedding soon," and replaces it with "you will always be a bachelor."
Roger, a reporter, changes his mind, however, when he bursts into a New Year's Eve party with the news that his paper is assigning him to a post in Japan and asks Julie to marry him that evening. Knowing that they will not see each other for three months until Roger can earn enough money for Julie's passage to Japan, the newlyweds kiss goodbye in Roger's train compartment. As they embrace, the train pulls out, and as a result, Julie stays in Roger's compartment until the train stops the next morning.
Three months later, when Julie is reunited with Roger in Japan, she reports that she is pregnant. Julie becomes concerned for the future of her family when she learns that Roger has lavishly furnished their house by spending advances on his salary. Later, when Roger inherits a small sum of money and announces that he has quit his job so that they can travel the world, Julie, disturbed by her husband's financial irresponsibility, goes upstairs to pack. At that moment, a violent earthquake strikes, demolishing the house and causing Julie to lose the baby.
...
Wikipedia