Joel McCrea brings new wife, research scientist Irene Dunne, home to meet mama Laura Hope Crews. The two women clash: not just over McCrea, but over philosophies of what women should be.
Miss Crews gives a heck of a performance as an old-fashioned woman who has tied her two sons, McCrea and Eric Linden, to her apron string. Of course, this is a Shavian sort of drama, in which all the evidence is on one side, without even Shaw's honesty of giving his villain some good jokes. As a woman who, in her own mind, has sacrificed everything to give her children what she thinks they need, she is not even granted the dignity of having done her own, poor best.
Even so, you cannot help but admire Miss Crews' performance. She's scatterbrained with a rod of iron for a spine. She had played the role on Broadway iin the 1926 season for over a hundred performances, and translated it beautifully for the screen.
Miss Crews gives a heck of a performance as an old-fashioned woman who has tied her two sons, McCrea and Eric Linden, to her apron string. Of course, this is a Shavian sort of drama, in which all the evidence is on one side, without even Shaw's honesty of giving his villain some good jokes. As a woman who, in her own mind, has sacrificed everything to give her children what she thinks they need, she is not even granted the dignity of having done her own, poor best.
Even so, you cannot help but admire Miss Crews' performance. She's scatterbrained with a rod of iron for a spine. She had played the role on Broadway iin the 1926 season for over a hundred performances, and translated it beautifully for the screen.