Mr. Cohen Takes a Walk

It's a sweet movie. There have been variations on the theme over the decades. But for its time, it was brave: How many movies featured central characters named Cohen, Levine, and Levy? Mr. Cohen is the founder of a department store that's become very successful. One of his sons is running it. And he feels as if he has no place at the job or in the world.

It has a sweet quality that is at the same time neither sentimental nor cloying.

I have heard that "Death of a Salesman" was meant to be about a Jewish salesman but the names were changed. I've also heard that Fred and Ethel from "I Love Lucy" were originally conceived as a Jewish couple. But did they turn out that way? No.

Yes, Gertrude Berg gave us Molly Goldberg; and the movie "Molly" is a joy. But this did it first and did it very well. My hat's off to it and all concerned with this enormously likable film.

Jake Cohen has spent thirty-five years, starting as a peddler, building up a big department store. He suddenly realizes his sons can run the business perfectly efficiently without him, his youngest son is in love with an Anglo-Irish girl (Oy!) and his beloved wife dies. Feeling useless, he takes a long walk through the English countryside of his youth.

It had been less than a decade since ABIE'S IRISH ROSE was the biggest hit ever on Broadway, and battling Irish and Jewish in-laws remained a staple of comedy for many years (Anyone remember BRIDGET LOVES BERNIE?), but this is a much gentler movie, with many beautiful and heartfelt family scenes. You may not find these characters believable. Believe me, they did exist once upon a time and this movie by the usually underrated William Beaudine -- better known for directing most of the Bowery Boys movies, but still working, at this stage, for a major studio and doing a fine job -- is well worth your time.

"Mr. Cohen Takes a Walk" (renamed "Father Takes a Walk" apparently for parts of the world where movies about Jews wouldn't play well) is an unexpectedly warm little film from the English studio that Warner Brothers set up in the 1930s. Mr. Cohen, the founding owner of the Empire Department Store in London, finds that his sons have modernized the store to the point where he has virtually nothing to do. After a domestic tragedy and a quarrel with the son who doesn't want to marry the woman his parents picked for him, Mr. Cohen decides to go for a long in the countryside where, as a wandering peddler, he sowed the seeds for his future success. There are no villains; there's no overt preachiness. There is, however, a wonderfully nostalgic and idealized vision of English village life and an English countryside that even then were undergoing major changes, not least from the ravages of the Great Depression. The acting is uniformly excellent, particularly that of the German refugee Paul Graetz as Mr. Cohen, an aging gentleman (and gentle man) who wonders if he has a place in the modern world. I saw this on Turner Classic Movies a year or two ago when they aired a number of Warner Brothers "Quota Quickies" (films made cheaply and rapidly in response to a British law that a certain percentage of films shown in the United Kingdom be made in the United Kingdom); the film deserves a DVD.

Interesting to see in 2006, a picture about the morals and business ethics that probably existed 70 years ago. Considering the passage of time, I was surprised to find so many of the conflicts of today, were, prevalent so many years ago. Religious differences, business ethics, management vs labor, and the like all come together in this rather simplistic film without the benefit (sic) of the next 70 years of social change. And the differences and problems somehow get solved.

Boy meets girl. Father disapproves not specifically stated for religious differences. Father not happy with son's trying to modernize business through advertising and the fact that a strike is called in spite of having a previous agreement. Father takes a walk, and the story continues with him on the outside. He finally returns to make the situation whole again and the marriage takes place under the supervision of a Priest and and Rabbi, the strike is called off and all's well that ends well.

I liked it. It was fun. It was (in terms of today) a comment on the changing times...and I am 75 years old.

Jake Cohen (Paul Graetz) is the owner of a successful department store. His sons and others have taken over most of the work leaving him as the figurehead. He yearns for the days with him running a small general store. He walks off and finds such a struggling small shop. His younger son Jack has romantic drama. After losing his wife, he abandons the busy work at his big store and starts working at the small shop.

I like the simple general premise at the center of this movie. Jake is a man looking for the days of his youth. It's a big compelling idea. I don't think this needs Jack's romantic drama. It makes Jake look bad in the arguing although it's fitting for an old time family drama to have the father trying to control his son. I rather simplify it to the store and the old man.