Mother Carey's Chickens

Widowed Fay Bainter and her two sons and two daughters move into a house and turn it into a boarding house. When the house is sold from under them, what will they do?

Katherine Hepburn was originally considered for a role in this movie, which looks like a follow-up to Little Women. She turned down the role and bought out her contract. As the movie exists, with direction by Rowland Lee, it was a wise decision. Although filled with good incidents and some fine supporting players -- Walter Brennan, Margaret Hamilton, Alma Kruger, Ralph Morgan -- there is no clear sense of more to it than that. In tone it seems caught between a situation comedy and nostalgia for the simpler days of the Mauve Decade, with a strong taste of the necessity of having enough money to get by on. Daughters Anne Shirley and Ruby Keeler are cute enough, and sons Jackie Moran and Donnie Dunagan charming enough. However, while good enough on its own terms, it's little more than that.

This was a delightful surprise. I'd heard about the actresses who'd turned down the lead role and -- let's face it -- the title is pretty corny.

But it is a charming movie -- funny and touching by turns. The little boy in it gets fairly low billing but far too much screen time. He's icky and barely understandable in many scenes. Otherwise I'd rats the movie a full 10.

I am kind of a cynic when it comes to Americana but now and then, it really works; and this is one of those times.

The movie reminds me of "Meet Me In St. Louis," which it predates, in that it is about a strong, loving family that stays together and triumphs over odds.

Ruby Keeler is surprisingly good in the role turned down by Katharine Hepburn and others. Fay Bainter is at her most appealing. James Ellison is, as always, appealing, as are Anne Shirley and Walter Brennan. In a juicy role that came a year before the one that made her famous, Margaret Hamilton is the kind of villain moviegoers love to see get her comeuppance, which she and her hapless husband surely do, thanks to the ingenuity of the family and the two sisters' beaux.

In the 1890s, widow Margaret Carey (Fay Bainter) struggles to keep a roof over the heads of her four children. When they finally have a steady home, a scheming couple (Margaret Hamilton, Harvey Clark) try to take it away from them. Meanwhile the two daughters (Anne Shirley, Ruby Keeler) fall in love with the same man (James Ellison).

I'm always up for an Anne Shirley movie. She's one of the most under-appreciated actresses of her era and one of the prettiest, too. It's nice to see Ruby Keeler outside of a musical but it's easy to see why her career went nowhere when she wasn't tapping. After this she didn't do another movie for three years. Fay Bainter is wonderful as the saintly Mother Carey. It's too bad she isn't in the movie more in the second half. Margaret Hamilton and Walter Brennan make any movie better and that holds true here. This is the film debut of child actor Donnie Dunagan. That name might not mean much to a lot of you but Universal horror fans will recognize him as the heavily-accented boy from Tower of London and Son of Frankenstein, both also directed by this film's director Rowland V. Lee. He has lots of precocious lines and funny moments. He's not the best little actor but he still manages to steal the picture. Charming Americana that provides some laughs and tears. It's not perfect but if you like movies like Meet Me in St. Louis, you should enjoy this.

The story is about a family who loses the father early on in the film. But because they love each other so much and are so full of pluck and determination that they somehow live happy lives even though they are dirt poor. They live on love as well as the inexplicable deal that allow them to live in a beautiful mansion despite being so poor.

I like old fashioned films but, alas, I found "Mother Carey's Chickens" to be a bit too much--too cloying, too sentimental and, at times, a bit too miserable. I just think that there are better family dramas of the period than this one. I think if the film had a bit of humor and a bit less sentimentality (such as in "Life With Father" or "Meet Me in St. Louis"), it would have worked a bit better. It did have quite a bit of this humor near the ending but it could have used it throughout. Overall, it's just an okay but a tad syrupy time-passer.

Not bad but strictly B movie shenanigans that lays the syrup on pretty thick.

Originally assigned to Katharine Hepburn at the tail end of the first phase of her screen career when she had been branded box office poison. She realized that if this was the best RKO was going to offer her that her career was doomed and wisely bought out the remainder of her contract and fled back east to regroup returning in triumph a few years later with The Philadelphia Story.

The film does have a few things going for it, mainly the supporting cast. Fay Bainter is gentle and warm as Mother Carey but she is sidelined after the first quarter of the picture to make room for a few sappy love stories and some minor drama and a smidgen of comedy. Old reliables Walter Brennan and Margaret Hamilton both add a bit of flavor to the film but it's strictly a second string affair.