Life with Father (1947)

Nearly a year after my first Michael Curtiz comedy, I've tried a second. I'm afraid the restoration, at least on the DVD sent by Netflix, leaves something to be desired, less for the faded Technicolor than for the audio feedback that makes some dialog hard to understand. This probably has something to do with the movie passing into the public domain in 1975.

Based on a play based on a book based on the life of Clarence Day, Jr., this adaptation focuses more on his stockbroking father (William Powell) and his mother (Irene Dunne), somewhat peculiarly calling each other "Clare" and "Vinnie" respectively. The plot meanders, thanks partly to four sons having their own concerns, but an overarching theme is that Clare was never baptized and keeps rebuffing Vinnie's requests for him to rectify that. More broadly, he wants to run the household like he does the office, with little success. He's not the only stubborn family member.

I Remember Mama (1948)

It's too bad my mom didn't come when my dad and I saw this in a theater. Few movies in any era have more female major characters than male, breezing thru the Bechdel Test. And few of those are also this good.

The title is a little curious, as "Mama" (Irene Dunne) is still very much alive and living with the narrator, Katrin (Barbara Bel Geddes), at the time of the narration. It hasn't even been more than a few years since the 1910 events in question, when Katrin was in her teens. Also strange is that Wikipedia, before my last edit at least, classified the film as a comedy. It has quaintly funny moments, such as dubbing a tomcat "Uncle Elizabeth" to accommodate stubborn youngest sister Dagmar, but I'd call it a "comedy" only in the old-fashioned sense of The Divine Comedy. It's more of a heartwarming melodrama.