Nice effects though.

An Exercise In Nonsense

Admirable film.

A Masterpiece!

So the title card claims, and it's based on a play by Maxwell Anderson, a distinguished American playwright who tackled tough subjects--fascism, apartheid, congressional dysfunction. I don't know this play, but whatever it was, the Epstein brothers utterly standardized it in their thin- blooded adaptation, a weak domestic drama where co-workers John Garfield and Anne Shirley meet, fall in love, marry, and suffer small-people problems. He's polite and mild-mannered and uninteresting, and she's pure ingenue, and watching them trod along the well-worn path of conventional screen romance has no bite. Even Claude Rains, as her father, seems disengaged. At least Lee Patrick, as her scheming sister, and Roscoe Karns, as her cynical brother-in-law, provide a little bite, and George Tobias is on the periphery, playing what he always played. But, despite an attempted suicide, a hidden pregnancy, and penny-ante deceptions in the young pair's marriage, it's slow, repetitive, and unfelt. And it needs edge. Oh, how it needs edge.

This version of Saturday's Children is the third film version of a popular Maxwell Anderson play that ran for 326 performances on Broadway during the 1927-28 season. It's a story of young love with sad to say a most miscast John Garfield.Of course Garfield might not have thought so since back on stage the role he plays as the young calf-eyed Rube Goldberg inventor was originated by none other than fellow Warner Brothers tough guy Humphrey Bogart. Hard to believe, but Bogey on stage played those kind of roles until The Petrified Forest changed his image. He and Ruth Gordon starred in the stage version.But image is everything and Garfield's similar image of a tough guy was set in the mind of the movie-going public then. Garfield insisted on doing this film and Jack Warner gave in. But when it flopped at the box office and it did, Warner was ready with the 'I told you so'. A silent version was done with Grant Withers and Corinne Griffith in 1928 and Warner Brothers later did the story again in 1935 with a more suitable Ross Alexander in the lead opposite Gloria Stuart.I suppose it was the thing back then for young marrieds to live with their parents. This film has Garfield and Anne Shirley living with her parents, Claude Rains and Elizabeth Risdon, along with other married sister Lee Patrick and her husband Roscoe Karns. No wonder these two want a little privacy.Rains brings Shirley to work in the office where he is a clerk and there she meets Garfield whom she falls for. Garfield is like George Bailey, a guy with an itch to do great things and sees an opportunity in the Phillipines for adventurous type work. But now he's got a wife who doesn't quite share that disposition.The best performance in the film belongs to Claude Rains. He almost makes quite the sacrifice to keep our young folk together.Even with a John Garfield that you can't quite get over, Saturday's Children is a nice film about people in love. That's a formula that always sells.

I've been watching any John Garfield films I can lately, and so far, this has been the most disappointing. Garfield is so miscast. I can't imagine what the studio was thinking. The film attempts to deal with the issue of young marriage facing poverty, but every character is so naive that I often found myself wondering if there was a gas leak in their building. It's the only rational way to explain their inability to cope with major problems at anything other than a fifth grade level. Garfield, who was Brando before there even was a Brando, is thoroughly wasted here. He plays his character as a sort of slack-jawed mope, who either pouts or widens his eyes at every little thing. Anne Shirley is attractive, but bland. Claude Rains starts promisingly, but even he can't surmount the problems inherent in the script. The film also commits the horror of having a character use the title in a dramatic moment in the end, summing up the entire film just before the credits roll. As if people really talk like that. John Garfield is amazing, and worth watching in just about anything. But not this.

This very entertaining film is directed flawlessly by Vincent Sherman and based on a Maxwell Anderson play. Top notch script providing laughter, sympathy and reflective determination.A lovely young woman(Anne Shirley) ends up tricking a hopeless schemer/inventor(John Garfield) into marriage. Is it tricked or trapped? The young couple struggle to the point of almost breaking up. They earn $101 a month, but spend $108. The poor lovers try to prove two can live as cheap as one...maybe if one doesn't eat!My favorite scene is when Garfield and brother-in-law(Roscoe Karns)come home drunk. Also funny is when Garfield is told that he was tricked into the marriage.Claude Rains is the young woman's father and plays the part cool and witty with his own brand of humor. Lee Patrick is sister Florrie, who is quite obnoxious from the get go.A very touching movie. Being poor is no fun, but it isn't the end of the world. Someone always has it worse. More than likely another Saturday child.