THE LATE GEORGE APLEY (1947)

Light satire based on a bestselling novel of the day about a Boston blueblood who finds he must begin to yield to the changing times and manners. Ronald Colman is excellent as the title character in a role he seems born to have played; Apley is a stuffy patriarch determined to run his family (and their personal lives) as he sees fit--the character reminded me occasionally of a cross between Mr. Banks of MARY POPPINS and Mr. Smith of MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS. He also has a great deal of influence in his moneyed neighborhood; he keeps election signs off the commons and questionable literature out of the library. Eventually, he butts up against the times. His daughter (Peggy Cummins) wants to marry a "radical" teacher, and his son (Richard Ney) falls in love with a girl who has the effrontery to come from somewhere other than Boston, though it has been arranged that he will marry a cousin (Vanessa Brown). Colman finds himself giving in here and there and learning a few lessons along the way, though in the end he refuses to give in the on the issue of his son's marriage. There are many witty lines throughout, some made even funnier by the delivery of Mildred Natwick as his even stuffier sister. When Cummins wants to leave the family to see her beau on Thanksgiving Day, Natwick says haughtily, "I never had a young man on Thanksgiving!" Her husband's reply is, "It's too late now." The bedrock of the family philosophy seems summed up by Natwick's remark, "Whenever I'm depressed, I remind myself that I'm an Apley." Other friends and relatives are nicely played by Richard Haydn (Uncle Max from THE SOUND OF MUSIC), Nydia Westman, and Charles Russell. Witty and charming. (Despite the title, Colman remains alive at the movie's end!) [FMC]