The respectable Christianity of Life with Father

In many ways this classic 1947 film has not aged well, with its portrayal of a stern patriarchal father and a manipulative mother who actually controls the household and invariably gets her way. What was thought humorous seventy-five years ago might be thought insufferable today. Nevertheless, I found the film fascinating, even as I admit I had to take it in small doses to get through the entire thing. Starring two of the best known actors of their day, William Powell (1892-1984) and Irene Dunne (1898-1990), Life with Father is a cinematic version of a 1939 play, based in turn on the 1935 autobiography by Clarence Day, Jr. (1874-1935), played in the film by 24-year-old Jimmy Lydon (1923-2022), better remembered for playing Henry Aldrich in the eponymous radio programme and film series. The score was composed by Max Steiner (1888-1971), known for his music for Gone With the Wind (1939), Casablanca (1942), and A Summer Place (1959), among many others.

 

The source of my interest lies in its portrayal of turn-of-the-last-century upper-middle-class urban Christianity. The Day family are New York City Episcopalians (Anglicans) in the 1890s (1883 in the film), their church affiliation playing a major role in the story line. This comes out in three subplots.

 

First, at the beginning of the film, the youngest son, preparing for confirmation, is learning the catechism from the Book of Common Prayer, with its distinctive opening dialogue:

"What is your name?"

"Whitney Benjamin."

"Who gave you your name?"

"My sponsors at baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven."

Second, it plays a role in young Clarence's flirtation with visiting Mary, played by Elizabeth Taylor, then at the peak of her renowned beauty. Because he is an Episcopalian and she a Methodist, there is some awkwardness between them, resolved, to humorous effect, only when she remembers that her father was baptized an Episcopalian.

 

Finally, Clarence Day, Sr., the pugnacious father played to the hilt by Powell, discovers that he was never baptized. For the rest of the film, his wife Vinnie (Dunne) manipulates him into being baptized at a parish in north Manhattan (probably the Church of the Intercession, judging from the geographical clues in the script) so that no one else would have to know. Vinnie and the children are fearful that, without baptism, "Father" risks the fires of hell. The elder Day thinks the whole business is ridiculous, but he finally acquiesces in order to please the family.

 

The entire film could be seen as a comedic send-up of a particularly wooden understanding of baptismal regeneration. As if being doused with water while harbouring a stubborn unbelief will somehow coax God into admitting the reluctant recipient into heaven.

 

As I said, the film has not stood the test of time in many respects, and it's rather on the slow side. Yet it's a classic meant to evoke in the audience nostalgia for a time half a century earlier when a certain nominal Christianity made for respectability in the rising middle class.

 

Because the film is in the public domain, there is more than one place to find it on YouTube, but the version here is high definition. See what you think of it.