Child of Divorce | |
---|---|
Directed by | Richard O. Fleischer |
Screenplay by | Lillie Hayward |
Based on | Wednesday's Child 1934 play by Leopold Atlas |
Produced by | Lillie Hayward |
Starring | Sharyn Moffett Regis Toomey Madge Meredith |
Cinematography | Jack MacKenzie |
Edited by | Samuel E. Beetley |
Music by | Leigh Harline |
Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 62 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Child of Divorce is a 1946 American drama film directed by Richard O. Fleischer. It was the first film that he directed. RKO had adapted the play to film before as the 1934 film Wednesday's Child . [1] [2]
Young Roberta "Bobby" Carter, only eight years old, catches her mother Joan as she kisses a man who isn't her father in a park. She is especially embarrassed, since her friends are present and recognize her mother.
Bobby's father Ray is away on a business trip, as he so often is, but comes home all of a sudden, bringing a small toy piano as a gift to Bobby. Joan tries to collect enough courage to tell her husband about her affair, but backs out in the last second.
Bobby is bullied for her mother's antics and romantics and ends up asking God to make her parents fall back in love. Unaware of her daughter's discovery, Joan continues to see her lover, Michael Benton.
Soon Ray becomes suspicious because of Joan's frequent absence from their home and asks her about it. Joan confesses that she is seeing another man and that she wants a divorce.
Bobby watches from a hidden position how her parents talk, and how her father slaps her mother in the face. Joan flees the house and is followed by the desperate Bobby. Joan tells her daughter that she is leaving the house and her father immediately and that she is taking Bobby with her. Bobby is crushed.
Months later, Bobby is asked to the stand in her parents' divorce trial, as a witness of her mother's infidelity, but she refuses to leave any information. Her parents divorce and a judge grants Joan custody of Bobby for all year except summer. Later, Joan marries Michael but Bobby refuses to accept Michael as her stepfather.
Michael grows tired of Bobby's behavior and tells Joan that the girl is breaking their marriage apart. When Bobby returns to her father in the summer, she is introduced to his new fiancée, Louise Norman, and gets even more upset.
A psychiatrist tells Joan and Ray that Bobby needs stability and continuity in her life to cope, and strongly suggests that only one of them should have sole custody over her. None of the parents feels up to this task, and instead Bobby is sent away to a boarding school.
Bobby is eventually visited by her parents, one at a time, and one of her schoolmates tells her that she will be used to being alone. To the sound of church bells playing the same tune as on her toy piano, Bobby vows to herself that she will never leave her own children when she grows up, and tuck them to bed every night. [3]
The film was the first feature directed by Richard Fleischer (credited as Richard O. Fleischer), who had directed the This is America documentary series and been signed to a long term contract with RKO. Fleischer says the film was conceived as a vehicle for Sharyn Moffett, "a ten year old actress that the studio hoped would turn into a Shirley Temple or a Margaret O'Brien, a metamorphosis devoutly to be wished. Actually she was a good little actress, better than most of the adults around her. The chrysalis, however, stubbornly refused to turn into a butterfly. She never did fly." [4]
According to Fleischer, "the movie turned out remarkably well." [4] He was then assigned to another Moffett vehicle, Banjo , which did less well.
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland, known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was an English-American actress who is best known for her starring roles in Hollywood films during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Fontaine appeared in more than 45 films in a career that spanned five decades. She was the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland. Their rivalry was well-documented in the media at the height of Fontaine's career.
Joan Geraldine Bennett was an American stage, film, and television actress, one of three acting sisters from a show-business family. Beginning her career on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 films from the era of silent films, well into the sound era. She is best remembered for her film noir femme fatale roles in director Fritz Lang's films—including Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945)—and for her television role as matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard in the gothic 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows, for which she received an Emmy nomination in 1968.
Constance Campbell Bennett was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress and producer. She was a major Hollywood star during the 1920s and 1930s; during the early 1930s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Bennett frequently played society women, focusing on melodramas in the early 1930s and then taking more comedic roles in the late 1930s and 1940s. She is best remembered for her leading roles in What Price Hollywood? (1932), Bed of Roses (1933), Topper (1937), Topper Takes a Trip (1938), and had a prominent supporting role in Greta Garbo's last film, Two-Faced Woman (1941).
Gloria Grahame Hallward was an American actress. She began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 made her first film for MGM.
Richard Owen Fleischer was an American film director whose career spanned more than four decades, beginning at the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood and lasting through the American New Wave.
Patricia Sharyn Moffett was an American child actress who appeared in films during the 1940s.
Payment on Demand is a 1951 American drama film directed by Curtis Bernhardt and starring Bette Davis and Barry Sullivan. The screenplay by Bernhardt and Bruce Manning chronicles a marriage from its idealistic early days to its dissolution.
The Happy Time is a 1952 American comedy-drama film directed by Richard Fleischer, based on the 1945 novel of the same name by Robert Fontaine, which Samuel A. Taylor turned into a hit play. A boy, played by Bobby Driscoll, comes of age in a close-knit French-Canadian family. The film stars Charles Boyer and Louis Jourdan as his father and uncle respectively. The play was also adapted into a musical in 1967 by composer John Kander, lyricist Fred Ebb, and librettist N. Richard Nash, and starred Robert Goulet.
My Pal Gus is a 1952 American comedy drama film directed by Robert Parrish which follows Gus, the young son of divorced industrialist Dave Jennings. Unable to cope with Gus' mischievous streak, Jennings places the boy in a day-care center. Gus' teacher Lydia Marble manages to curb the boy's prankishness, and along the way falls in love with Jennings. Enter the villainess of the piece: Jennings' ex-wife Joyce, who claims that the divorce is invalid and demands a huge sum from Jennings, lest she claim custody of Gus.
Bodyguard is a 1948 American film noir directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Fred Niblo Jr.and Harry Essex. It is based on a story written by George W. George and Robert Altman. The drama features Lawrence Tierney and, in her final screen appearance, Priscilla Lane.
Millie is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by John Francis Dillon from a screenplay by Charles Kenyon and Ralph Morgan, based on a novel of the same name by Donald Henderson Clarke. The film was an independent production by Charles R. Rogers, distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, after their acquisition of Pathé Exchange. It stars Helen Twelvetrees in one of her best roles, with a supporting cast that includes Lilyan Tashman, James Hall, Joan Blondell, John Halliday and Anita Louise.
Never Say Goodbye is a 1946 American romantic comedy film directed by James V. Kern and starring Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker, and Lucile Watson. Produced and distributed by Warner Brothers, it is about a divorced couple and the daughter who works to bring them back together. It was Errol Flynn's first purely comedic role since Footsteps in the Dark.
Our Very Own is a 1950 American drama film directed by David Miller. The screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert focuses on a teenage girl who learns she was adopted as an infant. Ann Blyth, Farley Granger, and Jane Wyatt star in the film.
Banjo is a 1947 American drama film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Sharyn Moffett, Jacqueline White and Walter Reed.
Wise Girl is a 1937 American romantic comedy film directed by Leigh Jason and starring Miriam Hopkins, Ray Milland and Walter Abel. The screenplay concerns a wealthy socialite who tries to gain custody of her orphaned nieces.
Sarah T. – Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic is a 1975 American psychological drama television film directed by Richard Donner and written by Richard and Esther Shapiro. The film stars Linda Blair as the title character. It also stars Mark Hamill, Larry Hagman, Verna Bloom, and William Daniels.
The Falcon in San Francisco is a 1945 American crime and mystery film directed by Joseph H. Lewis and stars Tom Conway, Rita Corday and Edward Brophy, who played the recurring role of "Goldie" Locke. The film was the 11th in The Falcon series of detective films, and the eighth featuring Conway as the amateur sleuth. The Falcon in San Francisco was the final film in the series produced by Maurice Geraghty, after which budgets were reduced and location shooting largely abandoned.
Wednesday's Child is a 1934 American drama film directed by John S. Robertson and written by Willis Goldbeck, based on the 1934 play Wednesday's Child by Leopold L. Atlas. The film stars Karen Morley, Edward Arnold, Frankie Thomas, Robert Shayne and Frank Conroy. The film was released on October 26, 1934, by RKO Pictures. The play was later adapted to film again as the 1946 RKO film Child of Divorce.
The Judge Steps Out is a 1948 American comedy film directed by Boris Ingster and written by Ingster and Alexander Knox. The film stars Knox and Ann Sothern, along with George Tobias, Sharyn Moffett, Florence Bates, Frieda Inescort and Myrna Dell. The film was completed in March 1947, but its American release was held up until June 2, 1949, by RKO Pictures. The film was retitled Indian Summer in Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
A Question of Love is a 1978 American made-for-television drama film directed by Jerry Thorpe and written by William Blinn. The movie is based on a true legal case in which a lesbian mother fought for custody of her children against her ex-husband who claimed her lifestyle was immoral. The film stars Gena Rowlands and Jane Alexander as the lesbian couple, Clu Gulager as the ex-husband, with Ned Beatty and Bonnie Bedelia as the custody lawyers. It premiered on November 26, 1978, on ABC, and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Television Film.