An oft repeated maxim I use when discussing older films, particularly from Hollywood’s so-called “Golden Age” (roughly 1930-1950, give or take a few years), is to remember that times were different.  That rather misleading pronoun is meant to indicate everything contained within culture and society.  It is not enough to look at classic cinema and note that people acted and dressed in unfamiliar ways.  You should also be made aware of why they are doing things the way they are, which enriches your viewing experience.  Granted, my main goal is to give you a Catholic perspective on what I watch, but having an understanding of such context can enhance the spiritual aspect.  For example, in today’s film, Penny Serenade (1941), when social worker Miss Oliver (Beulah Bondi) asks would-be adopters Julie (Irene Dunne) and Roger Adams (Cary Grant) their religion, they answer with “same.”  Such a non-descript response might seem puzzling if you subscribe to the stereotype that the mid-twentieth century was a period of entrenched traditional values, a viewpoint that has some merit.  Yet, such words lead to the understanding that behind them is Catholicism’s influence on the motion picture industry and the goal of promoting a broad sense of faith.  If you want to read more about it, you can check out my doctoral dissertation, “The Costumed Catholic: Catholics, Whiteness, and the Movies, 1928-1973.”  If you want a shorter version, continue reading this review.

The title Penny Serenade is misleading if you are thinking it means a whimsical tale of a romance born of a heartfelt song.  It is also financially inaccurate as Julie plays a number of records that provide the music you hear throughout.  Speaking of love, we begin at what looks like the end for her and her husband, Roger.  With employee and family friend Applejack Carney (Edgar Buchanan) helping her with her luggage, she begins to play tunes that turn out to be a cinematic device to give us flashbacks of her and Roger’s relationship.  They meet while, appropriately enough, she is working at a record shop in New York City.  He is a young newspaper reporter passing the window when he spots her.  In order to spend more time with her, he has her play an armful of discs and buys them all.  As they walk home together that evening, conveniently in the same direction, she wonders why he made so many purchases without a player, but the reason for the spending soon dawns on her.  They begin dating, with her eager to marry and start a family, and him hiding a fortune cookie line saying that this would soon happen.  His initial reticence is why, during a New Year’s Eve party with him running late, Applejack cautions Julie against getting mixed up with a journalist.  She humors him, but Applejack’s warnings go by the board when Roger shows up and asks her to be his bride.  Since he is being sent to be the Asian correspondent stationed in Tokyo, they have a hasty wedding that night and spend some adult time for part of the train ride to the west coast.  A few months later, she comes to be with him in Japan with the news that she is pregnant.  Their joy is short lived, unfortunately, as their home over there is destroyed by an earthquake.  In the devastation, Julie has a miscarriage, and while convalescing back in the United States, she learns that she can no longer have children.  Roger attempts to cheer her up by revealing that he has taken the money he has inherited and bought a newspaper in rural California.  He buys the publication for $8,000, but like I said in the introduction, things were different at that time.  He brings Applejack out to help run the paper, and together they fight to slowly build readership.  It is also the longtime friend who gets Julie and Roger to agree to adopt a child.  Their desire is for a baby boy, but Miss Oliver patiently explains that there is a process to adoption, and that it might take some time.  The notion of being told to wait leaves Julie and Roger feeling deflated until Miss Oliver phones to say that they have a special case for them: a five-week-old girl named Trina.  The Adams’ circumstances are not ideal, with the paper struggling, income being inconsistent, and not having the most spacious apartment.  This is why fostering Trina for the Adams is on a one-year trial basis.  After their first night and day of being unsure of what to do as parents, you might think they are unfit, though it is played for comedic effect.  Upon that turn of the calendar, the publication has nearly gone under, leaving the toddler Trina (Jane Biffle) about to be placed back in the orphanage.  It takes an impassioned plea from Roger before the judge (Wallis Clark) for them to keep the child, which is remarkable given how adamant he was about wanting a boy.  Julie and Roger’s joy of having Trina sadly lasts just six years (Eva Lee Kuney).  In a letter Julie writes to Miss Oliver, she tells of a sudden illness that came upon Trina, bringing on death within three weeks.  Julie and Roger are devastated, but Roger has withdrawn into himself, ignoring his wife’s pain.  Their disconnect is underscored when they give a mother and her little boy a ride to the school Christmas play, the same one that Trina had been looking forward to being in as an angel.  Not being able to take more reminders of his loss, Roger tells Julie to drive home without him, and this when the movie catches up with the present.  He returns as she is about to leave, and finally they talk about the agony they have been experiencing.  In the midst of this discussion, they get a call from Miss Oliver telling them there is a two-year-old boy just like they had hoped for waiting for adoption, and the social worker wanted to know if the Adams could take him.  The movie ends with them planning for the new addition, all issues forgotten.

I was not entirely comfortable with the way Penny Serenade concluded.  They are on the brink of divorce, and what saves them is Miss Oliver informing them that the child they had essentially ordered as from a catalog is ready to be “picked up.”  The Catholic Church has no problem with adoption, and indeed promotes it as part of its commitment to being pro-life.  At the same time, raising a child is not an antidote for marital problems.  I also did not care for how specific they were about wanting to take in a blonde-haired, blue-eyed toddler boy with curly hair.  As alluded to in the introduction, knowing the historical context behind such things is somewhat helpful.  Such characteristics were prized, though Nazi ideology made these features a tad gauche.  A Catholic parent, though Julie and Roger never confess to being one, should be open to any kind of life that God brings to them.  Having a family is not about getting what you want because you have to place the needs of others above your own.  That is what makes their list of demands as to the specifications of their potential adopted child so tawdry.  Children are a gift from God, being made by His hand, not ours.  Still, to this point in the review I have been critical.  They do deserve some praise from a Catholic perspective.  I appreciated Julie’s desire to be a mother, which, despite what modern culture and society might say, is a noble vocation.  I also applaud that she still wants children after she is told that she cannot have any.  Finally, they learn what an amazing privilege it is to be a parent as they raise Trina.  Roger probably has the biggest transformation in this regard.  He goes from being hesitant to having kids, seeing them as a threat to his carefree lifestyle, to crying in front of a magistrate and vowing to take whatever job he must to provide for a little one.  As covered a moment ago, being a parent takes putting another life above your own because that is what Jesus did for us.  Hopefully, when they do get their new boy, Julie and Roger will work on their marriage and provide a blessed environment.

If you can get around the issues I mentioned with Penny Serenade, it is a pretty sweet movie.  Having Dunne and Grant in it helps.  The little girl who plays six-year-old Trina is also precious, which makes her passing all the more difficult.  I literally held my breath when we see her slip and fall, which, of course, is foreshadowing.  As such, this one gets a solid recommendation.