O Amor Resolve Tudo

Loretta Young, the toothy, huge-eyed leading lady, was known in Hollywood as "Attila the Nun", due to her evangelical Catholic faith (which extended to introducing a swear jar on set, something I'll have to implement at work) and iron will. She may have been voted the Hollywood Women's Press Club's most cooperative actress of 1950 (Bob Mitchum scooped their least cooperative actor gong), but then she always was a sassy self-publicist. Still, despite all that, and the bad press she's had in recent years for the whole Judy Lewis affair, she remains an attractive performer: ethereal and appealing in those early years, then a fitting screen mother as her fascinating looks ebbed away.

It Happens Every Thursday was her final film and it's a charming piece of Americana: something like the gentle cousin of Sam Fuller's Park Row, with a showy role for Young as the archetypal supportive wife – stoic, resourceful and loyal. John Forsythe is a New York newspaperman who buys his own small-town 'paper – the Eden Chronicle – and finds it's going to need a bit of work. The relationship between Forsythe and screen wife Young is smartly written and delightfully played, and the difficulties they face are nicely realised. The familiar baddie in such movies, a hateful, sniping little gossip gleefully ruining lives, is usually a harridan, but here you get a fey wannabe adulterer, played by Willard Wateman. The rest of the supporting cast is pretty much terrific, featuring the greatest character comic of them all, Frank McHugh, alongside Preston Sturges regular Jimmy Conlin and round-faced Edgar Buchanan, who's excellent in a surprisingly deep role. Best of all is the magnificent Gladys George (also appearing on the big screen for the final time), the most sympathetic brothel owner in '50s cinema. This blend of Johnny Come Lately and Mr Blandings could have seemed stale, but thanks to good scripting, pleasant plotting and lovely acting, it turns out just great.

Loretta Young and John Forsythe both do fine work here, as does the entire supporting cast, all of which are very good really. The basic story is solid enough too, but the script just isn't funny or witty enough to create the humor and engagement intended. As such the overall effect is a bit flat. Still there are enough moments in It Happens Every Thursday to check it out if your interested/curious.

When things really were akin to 'It's a Wonderful Life!' Here it is almost just a good warm and wholesome feeling that evokes nothing but more goodness inly that is!

Even the characters , I don't know how they did it but almost everyone in this set irradiates goodness!

I just totally completely fell in love with this film and the ending was wonderful, there is something really cool and classic about these black & white's! They just , I don't know, make me want to stoke the fire and drink hot chocolate and pet a big scruffy shaggy dog sprawled out on the hearthrug and oh! eat some cheesecake? or apple pie even though its not time for the next repast! Gosh this was a nice!

And golly that lead actess, boy can she instill hope right? Talk about a good person, I mean good character , everyone in here is jolly nice!

P.S. its on youtube no less! :)

John Forsythe, pregnant wife Loretta Young, and their son leave New York and his newspaper grind to take over a small town newspaper in California. There they struggle with small circulation, bad finances and a suspicious local crowd.

It's an innocuous, light-hearted drama that breaks no new ground, one of the utterly banal near-comedies of the era. Where it excels is in its wealth of supporting actors, including Edgar Buchanan as yet another big-hearted printer, Jimmy Conlin, Frank McHugh, Jane Darwell, Gladys George, Regis Toomey, and even Francis Ford in his next-to-last movie.

Better known as John Ford's brother, Francis had started out in movies as part of the Melies company in Texas doing cowboy pictures. By 1915, he and Grace Cunard were major players on the Universal lot, doing serials, adventure pictures, often with Ford directing. When brother John came out west, Francis got him work on the lot. Ford continued as a supporting player through the 1930s, but eventually was reduced to bits in his brother's pictures. In all, he made almost five hundred shorts and features as a performer, 180 as a director. He died the year this picture came out, aged 72.

In Loretta Young's final big screen film there are so many familiar and wonderful character players you would think this came from Frank Capra. A few in It Happens Every Spring are Capra veterans.

Loretta and her husband John Forsythe are newspaper people and they work at different papers on different shifts. It's quite a pressure filled atmosphere so Forsythe and Young decide to use their savings and buy a small town weekly newspaper.

The usual problems of city folk adjusting to small town living and small town news stories are in her. The biggest item on people's minds is the drought the community is suffering. Forsythe tries to do something about it and ends up in a public relations jackpot.

This is a pleasant piece of entertainment so reminiscent of some of the Frank Capra classics. Young picked a good one as her farewell to the big screen.