StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Benedito Dias Rodrigues This is delightful customs comedy to be living each single scene,the father is played by William Powell in your best performance ever...which is a kind of impertinent man who live over our rules,he faces every expenses even has been a rich man,but the main problem reachs when your puritan and religious woman discover that him wasn't get the christian baptism until now,so after that she handle in your own terms,became father's life a real nightmare,a real gem of old cinema that still amuzing us with so funny picture!!!!Resume:First watch: 1980 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD-R / Rating: 9

mark.waltz He thinks he's king of the roost, but the queen is really the power behind the throne. Father is William Powell, as far from the delightfully drunken Nick Charles as he can be, and mother is Irene Dunne, whom second to Myrna Loy could be called the woman every man would love to come home to. Yes, mother may be sweet and apparently submissive, but that's only for show. Behind the scenes, mother knows how to work father so she can get him to do precisely as she wants him to do, especially be baptized! She can passively/aggressively manipulate him without his even knowing it, and she sweetly grins in the all-knowing fact that she has him where she wants him and he still thinks he's in control.That's the subject of this delightful version of the longest running play in Broadway history, colorfully made into a film as if it was a Currier and Ives magazine spread come to life. Once you meet father, you can't help but love him in spite of his imperious attitude, so stiff upper lip you'd swear he was British, not a New Yorker. Powell makes his pompous character very relatable, and with the fact that he's basically a fool unknowingly controlled by his wife, that makes for delicious payback. That's why there ended up being a sequel for Broadway called "Life With Mother", because she's really the ruler of the roost, allowing him his pride by making him think he's really the one in command.Powell and Dunne are surrounded by a wonderful cast which includes a very young Elizabeth Taylor as a young lady who visits with Dunne's dizzy aunt (Zasu Pitts) and upsets older son Jimmy Lydon who just doesn't understand women. Martin Milner ("Adam 12") is recognizable instantly as the second oldest son, while Derek Scott and Johnny Calkins round out the roles of the younger children. I couldn't help but find it humorous to imagine Powell's imperious Clarence Day siring children who here are under 10 years old. Powell's imperiousness with his children covers everything from oatmeal to a new suit for the oldest son, and with his wife such trifles as a rubber tree plant and a porcelain dog. The same year he won screen immortality as Santa Claus in "The Miracle on 24th Street", Edmund Gwenn played another spiritual figure, here the Episcopal priest who is aghast by the fact that one of the congregation's top members has refused to be baptized. This makes the plot seem almost absent, but the whole slice-of-life atmosphere is so delightfully presented and charming, you never realize for the most part that you are watching a two hour movie with basically no story. Then, there's the comical subplot of Powell's imperious attitude over the maids who come and go just like Murphy Brown's secretaries decades later. One maid runs out in horror after crashing down a flight of stairs as if she's just encountered Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff in a darkened corridor.Even with a very serious director (Michael Curtiz) at the helm of this light-hearted picture, everything moves smoothly, and the art direction of the Day house is simply divine. The film also takes the family to the famous Delmonico's Restaurant for a trip into vintage New York high society. Such great character performers as Emma Dunn, Elisabeth Risdon and Clara Blandick pop in for some memorable bits. While the play may not hold up well on stage today, the film takes the audience back to an era of grace and manners long gone from one of the greatest cities in the world.

moonspinner55 William Powell as Wall Street broker Clarence Day, a devout Republican, penny-pincher, and eternally-fussy family man in 1880s New York. He's an insufferable prig, the kind of man who refuses to kneel at church and makes maids cry. His lashing out at everyone is supposed to blustery and charming--holding up a 'mirror' to the audience so that we can see what funny fools we all are. This would acceptable if Powell's performance were indeed a hoot but, instead, his Clarence Day is a lead-weight: Ebenezer Scrooge without the benefit of Christmas. Donald Ogden Stewart's screenplay (adapted from the insanely long-running Broadway hit by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, from Day's memoir), is full of big entrances, punched-up laugh lines, and broad exposition. One gets the feeling that Ogden Stewart grew up in the theater and remained there throughout his adulthood. The picture has handsome color, and the casting benefit of a girlish Elizabeth Taylor as a love-interest for Powell's eldest son (whose voice cracks like a 12-year-old's, though the actor portraying him is at least 20). As for Powell, his nasty disposition is finally (and predictably) sentimentalized, as if the ultimate purpose of this piece was simply to melt our hearts. Bah! ** from ****

fms35 I have been a tremendous fan of this movie for many years. I discovered the movie version after I had seen a local stage production and it was an excellent transfer of the play to the screen. Until recently I had only seen it on TV first in black and white years ago and then in color on TCM. I like it so well I bought two of the DVD versions (I won't mention which) and as other reviewers have said they were horrible with washed out color, grainy images and sound that was not synchronized and barely understandable. I guess this is all you can reasonably expect for a movie that has some how slipped into the public domain and for which there is not much demand. However, while searching on Amazon I discovered a review for a new digitally remastered DVD that supposedly fixed all those problems. I ordered a copy and the review was correct. There is now an excellent DVD available from DigiComTV BarCode # 885444062681.