Penny Serenade

directed by George Stevens
List(s):"Movie One"
Category: "Drama"
Year of Release:1941
Date Added:12/30/2014
Date Watched:02/05/2015
Description:Roger Adams (Cary Grant), a newspaperman full of promises but lacking in delivery, meets and marries Julie (Irene Dunne) whose one purpose in life is to have a child. Roger's work takes him to Japan. Julie follows and becomes pregnant, but miscarries during an earthquake. Back in the states and unable to have a child, they adopt a little girl. Roger loses his job and the court determines to take the child away from them, but Roger's impassioned plea changes the judges mind. Years pass, and when the girl is six, she suddenly dies (we find this out from a letter to the woman at the adoption agency). Roger can't deal with the loss and becomes uncommunicative. Julie decides to leave him, but at that moment, the adoption agency calls and says they have a little boy for them, which suddenly makes everything OK.
My Rating:4

Reviews for Penny Serenade

Review - Penny Serenade

A long, slow-moving, long, dreary, long movie. We are forced to watch as Roger and Julie struggle to walk up the stairs without waking the baby, to change a diaper, to give the child a bath. Their concern and incompetence is overplayed to a ridiculous extent. As is their inability to communicate after their daughter dies. As is the way things are suddenly OK when the agency calls with an offer of a son, as though one child immediately erased the loss of another.
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