Really Surprised!

Disturbing yet enthralling

Charming and brutal

The first must-see film of the year.

"Penny Serenade" reviews the history of a relationship as told in flashbacks remembered by the wife (Irene Dunne). She is weighing the good and bad times, prompted by music that was part of their history, deciding if she can remain with her husband (Cary Grant).The repeated references to phonograph records might sound tiresome, and some of the scenes can be overly sentimental, but the final product is still a film worth seeing. Dunne displays every emotion possible and Cary Grant turns in what may be the best acing of his career. If you ever doubted his abilities as an actor, watch the scene where he pleads for custody of the child they wish to adopt. No wonder his performance received an Oscar nomination.Edgar Buchanan is terrific as the gruff family friend who is reliable and caring. Beulah Bondi plays Miss Oliver, the adoption agency worker who finds herself emotionally involved with their case.If this film is a weeper, it nevertheless deserves consideration as a fine film.

Julie's marriage to Roger is on the rocks and they are about to separate. When she is by herself, she plays a succession of records associated with different stages of her relationship with Roger. With the playing of each record, the tune becomes the background music of a flashback, beginning with when they first met, and at important stages in their lives. But the flashbacks show us what a great marriage they have, so we figure something really bad must have happened to cause these two to separate. After an accident, Julie is no longer able to have children, so they adopt a girl. At first I thought that somehow Roger was going to be responsible for her death, by accidentally running over her when she runs out into the street. She does die, but it is clearly not anyone's fault, not even accidentally so. Furthermore, her death is not even seen, but only mentioned in a letter, followed by scenes of the two of them being silent and sad. We never really believe that they are going to get divorced, and they don't.The plot of this movie is similar to "The Marrying Kind" (1952), where another couple is about to get a divorce. Instead of records playing tunes from the past, the divorce judge, who can see that they have a good marriage, questions them, and their story is told in flashbacks, revealing what a good marriage they have, making us wonder when we are going to get to the part that made them so miserable. Once again, we find that a child died, this time by drowning; once again it is an accident for which neither of them can be thought to be responsible; and once again we can see that this is something that they will eventually get over, and so they do not get the divorce.The moral of these stories seems to be that people who are in an unhappy marriage should stay together and work things out. There is something irritating about the way both movies are dismissive of just how miserable a marriage can be, as if married couples who want a divorce simply don't realize how much they really love each other.

Penny Serenade is basically the movie version of life for people. Love is pressed into the wall by problems both internal and external. Their attempts to create a family was staring to crumble and left them on the verge of divorce. This movie tend to be magnificent when it comes to showing these problems and how the couple try to handle them together, even though it affects their relationship. The emotion really shows between the two and the facts about marriage are proved quite true by their actions. The movie itself seems interesting in the black and white format and if yo have not seen this film or ever wanted to see it again, do so now!

First and foremost, the idea of telling the whole movie through flashback was brilliant. Every record represented a different time and brought back significant memories. The wipe with in the record to the next scene was a bit awkward sometimes, but it was 1941. The movie was actually quite good but the ending was very off putting. I wouldn't say it ruined my entire experience, but it certainly came close. I was right with these characters the entire time until the writer decided to "jump to shark". It is a happy ending but definitely not realistic. Their solution to the problem was more suited to replacing the family dog, not their child.