Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Absolutely the worst movie.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

The time period is Irish Brooklyn after the first waves of immigrants built the city's infrastructure. The time period is set before young widows raising children without current income were not yet offered social services. The symbolic tree could be the one removed from the view of the tenement occupants perhaps the widowed mother who is the tree supporting the family perhaps the ambitious daughter willing to give up her dreams to see her mom and little brother better looked after perhaps the widowed Irish cop whose hopes and dreams are this little family could after their bereavement period now becomes his. Brilliant performances by some actors not known today and by others major figures of their time among them Joan Blondell, Dorothy Maguire and Lloyd Nolan. A fond recollection for the recently deceased who were children in this era as well as for those of us raised by them too young to have experienced it. For those who wonder what it might have been like this is perhaps the best portrait of this era one will ever see on film.

It was the early 1900s in Brooklyn. Many families crowded together in tenement buildings, poor families that barely made ends meet, but always paid the monthly ten cents to the man who sold funeral insurance. Life expectancy wasn't real long. An extra penny here and there meant something.This movie has special appeal to me, it came out in 1945, the year I was born. Shot in glorious black and white, the cinematography is excellent. The title is a reference to a tree growing in a courtyard, seemingly out of the concrete. The young daughter laments that it is being cut down, but dad says it won't die, it will grow back. It is also a metaphor for life, for getting back up after you have been knocked down.Beautiful Dorothy McGuire, in her 20s here, is the mom, Katie Nolan. She is a severe mom, hardly ever smiling, because she knows how difficult it is to keep the family in home and fed. Joan Blondell is her sister, the good, fun-loving aunt, Sissy, who is at one point banned from the family, but later returns to help the healing.Winning an Academy Award for supporting actor was James Dunn as the father, Johnny Nolan, who calls himself a singing waiter but often drinks too much, and never seems to deliver the goods for the family. He is a "pipe dreamer", always talking about what is going to happen, without a plan to make it happen.The real star is young (12) Peggy Ann Garner as the daughter, Francie. She is smart, reads a lot, and works hard to help the family. She adores her dad, it is clear that he has the greatest influence on her.This is a really good movie, about family, how things become trials, and how they are able to overcome them.

Possibly only a director with an eye for gritty reality like the great Elia Kazan could come up with a successful adaptation of Betty Smith's classic novel. With the help of screen writers Tess Slesinger and Frank Davis, with some additional dialogue by Anita Loos (uncredited), Kazan manages to capture the atmosphere of the time and the place; he also demonstrates his considerable skill with characterization. The result is a movie that in spite of considerable flaws has the same raw emotional power that has made the book such an essential.The setting is the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn around the turn of the Twentieth Century. The original novel covered a period of about ten years in the lives of the Nolan family, which is the movie's first major gaffe: in having Peggy Ann Garner and Ted Donaldson play Francie and Neeley Nolan for the duration of the picture, he suspends the story in time and thus makes for a rather confusing adaptation of a book that spanned a decade and was about a young girl's coming of age.Be that as it may, Peggy Ann Garner is luminous as Francie; Oscar-winner James Dunn turns in solid support as her beloved father Johnny, and Dorothy McGuire, a brilliant actress who never really received her due in Hollywood, is sensational as matriarch Katie Nolan, a woman who marries a man she is madly in love with only to discover he is a no-good drunk. He is not abusive or anything like that, it's just that married to Johnny, the twin burdens of the household duties and earning enough money to live on fall on Katie's shoulders.This is a beautiful film. As an adaptation of the novel it fails in some key points (read it and you'll see), but overall it is a fine and moving piece of cinematic art, well-deserving of its status as an American classic.

Peggy Ann Garner was just 13 years old when filming "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." Thank you Mr. Turner because I never saw a finer acting performance by any young teen in any film. Peggy died at age 52 , was never a BIG STAR but her performance in this film could have never been matched had she lived and continued in the motion picture industry for a full lifetime. Simply stated: I was stunned by her ability. Incidentally she did win the Academy Juvenile Award in 1945.Dorothy McGuire as Peggy's mom.Enormously gifted. A lifetime of monumental acting achievement which didn't deviate one iota from this role. Then we have James Dunn who played Peggy's dad and for which he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor 1945. Dunn is absolutely superb as the community drunkard and a waiter with big dreams.You will see the hustle and bustle of 1912 Brooklyn. You will hear the calliope filling the streets with the resounding music of that era. You will see hardship and poverty endured as a 13 year old girl comes of age. The interaction of characters of this film is historic...the entire film is legendary and make sure you have a handkerchief handy.