Director: Leo McCarey
Year Released: 1937
Rating: 3.0
When an elderly couple (Beulah Bondi and Victor Moore) are forced to sell their home because of a lack of savings and unemployment, they have to move in with their children's families, much to everyone's chagrin. It's beautifully observed and intelligent, showing both sides with fairness: the now-grown children with families of their own find their parents nuisances and easy to blame while their parents (now grandparents) genuinely do get in the way, with their sickness, their old-fashioned ways and their intrusiveness (the sequence with Bondi interrupting her daughter-in-law's bridge class is so awkward I shuddered). The third act, however, is just a little too morbid, as the couple's children decide to separate them permanently (sending Dear Old Dad to California and Mom to an Old-Age Home), giving the two a few remaining hours together on Earth to revisit old haunts in Manhattan and enjoy that final waltz together: it's a long stretch of dour filmmaking.
