***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** BF'S DAUGHTER was released in the United Kingdom under the name POLLY FULTON, and I wonder if this would have been a better title in the same vein as her STELLA DALLAS, THELMA JORDAN, and Joan Crawford's Oscar winning MILDRED PIERCE. Now, while this was no MILDRED PIERCE, it was a typically glossy MGM soap opera treatment of a best-selling novel that was also a political satire of the United States' upper class citizens nearing the end of the great depression. It was glossed-over into a simple love story destined for a happy ending. Much of the sheen showcased the beauty and acting skills of one Miss Barbara Stanwyck, a title of respect given to her as early as 1931, and puts her in an excellent company of seasoned professionals who hold their own and keep the story charming and engaging. One of my favorite scenes is where Stanwyck's Polly reacts to what the maid tells her when her father BF is lying ill in the next room. Another favorite Stanwyck scene is near the end when she confronts her husband about the Dutch girl with whom he is rumored to be having an affair and Stanwyck's Polly tells him that she loves her ex-fiancé because he is an honorable and honest man, basically like her father, but she is not in love with him; yet she hates her husband for not appreciating and respecting her father, and at the same time she really loves her husband, whom she may end up losing. The amazing thing I noticed in this scene is that I could see here the same Stanwyck that I saw in her closing moments with Richard Chamberlain in "The Thorn Birds" some thirty-five years later in the famous `I still feel, I still love' scene before she goes off to die. The emotion and the control, the fire and desire, were here as it remained with her to the very end. It is a Stanwyck trademark and really the controlling element of her portrayal of Polly Fulton. If you are a Stanwyck fan, you will appreciate that this is her picture from start to finish.
A very essential part of this movie that should not go unnoticed is the cast of supporting stars. Van Heflin and Stanwyck always had good chemistry and seemed to be cut from the same mold. See them in the year earlier MARTHA IVERS or EAST SIDE WEST SIDE made the year later for more of the same subtle interplay between two consummate stars. It's particularly rare that a pairing of two such similar actors sparkle as well when the norm is to make them opposites for more attraction. Other veteran actors in this movie who had played the same role opposite Stanwyck in other movies should be noted. Her loving and doting father, BF, a self-made millionaire and industrial-capitalist is not immune to shedding a tear when his daughter announces that she plans to elope, and he blames it on the sun in his eyes. He is played with the feisty charm of Charles Colburn who was seven years earlier her loving and doting father in THE LADY EVE. Quite similarly, her mother played here so effectively by Spring Byington was also her sweet, and widowed mother in MEET JOHN DOE. The only real difference in Miss Byington's two mothers is their social statuses, but both were patient and kind and ready to yield advice when asked based on what their husbands would have said. Then there is Martin Ainsley, a somewhat lovable antagonist, played by Keenan Wynn who is both a commentator against the rich, and later a war correspondent who was always making monumentally incorrect predictions concerning the unfolding drama of the dawning of the Second World War almost to the point of being comical. His real name, Francis Xavier Aloysius James Jeremiah Keenan Wynn, was a comic piece in itself, and in real life, he was the son of actor-comedian Ed Wynn and Hilda Keenan
Perhaps it is because I had the attitude that too much work goes into making a movie for it to be dismissed as totally worthless, as some critics would, that I wanted to find the good of this story. There is a very telling line delivered by Polly's best friend, Apples, about marriages, also expressed by BJ in another scene in a slightly different way, which said that marriage is not always the same as in the books but it's still worth fighting for. Some have said that this movie was not faithful to the book on which it was based and it could have been a better movie if it had been. Is this news? In Hollywood, I think, this is the norm rather than the exception. If I were writing a review of a car made in the United Kingdom, I would hesitate to be critical of the fact that the stirring wheel is on the right side of the vehicle. I restate my original claim that this movie chose to emphasize personal relationships over worldly and political issues. Perhaps a movie like Striesand's and Redford's THE WAY WE WERE did a much better job of clashing love and politics some twenty six years later, as many movies do, I'm sure, but that one quickly comes to mind. Polly worshipped the ground that her father walked on and he wanted her to be happy above all else. His influence was quite evident and he was the more dominant of the two parents throughout the movie. I loved the sarcastic toast that Tom made to his father-in-law at dinner which said: `To BF from whom all blessings flow: ' True to style, the sarcasm was totally lost on Mrs. BF who remarked, `That's really sweet, Tom.' A more subtle influence from her mother should be noted by the way Polly wanted to be both needed and dominated my the men in her life. The scene where her mother discovers Polly with a needle and thread is an amusing one. It was, of course, for mending her suitor's (Heflin's) coat. Upon visiting her fiancé's rather plain and unadorned apartment for the first time after he has declined her financial advice based on a tip she assumed from her father, her second assumption was that this would be where she could finally do something to help her struggling up-and-coming-junior-executive-fiancé but he is too morally correct and proud to be interested in her plans. She leaves thinking that he is an iron man, cold and heartless, much like the symbolic iron man clock that the Fultons have in their home, which strikes a resounding blows for each hour that passes. He even promises her that when they are married, they will have iron animals on their lawn in New Jersey, but her eyes have a faraway look in them that says `South Seas.' A few scenes later a turning point comes early in the movie when Polly asks her fiancé, who was also her childhood sweetheart, to forbid her to go to the Speakeasy with her friend Apples, and he says that he would wait until they are married. However, at the Speakeasy the first thing that the new man-to-be in her life, played by Van Heflin, says to her is that he would forbid her from coming to such a place with anyone other than himself. Later when she complains about his missing button and torn suit, she replies, `you look awful from top to bottom.' His response was, `Why don't you improve me.' Nobody can say that he didn't ask for it. When he asks her to go with him to the South Seas, their fate is sealed. As great an actress as she was, even Miss Stanwyck admitted that she was in her share of bad movies, but I also remember reading once in the biography STARRING MISS BARBARA STANWYCK by Ella Smith where she said that nobody ever sets out to make a bad movie, but once you realize that is isn't going to turn out as well as you hoped, it still deserved the best you could give of yourself. Here we have in a sentence the legendary professionalism of this eternal star. Even if this movie is not all that it should be, just look for the silver lining. It's Barbara Stanwyck.
A very essential part of this movie that should not go unnoticed is the cast of supporting stars. Van Heflin and Stanwyck always had good chemistry and seemed to be cut from the same mold. See them in the year earlier MARTHA IVERS or EAST SIDE WEST SIDE made the year later for more of the same subtle interplay between two consummate stars. It's particularly rare that a pairing of two such similar actors sparkle as well when the norm is to make them opposites for more attraction. Other veteran actors in this movie who had played the same role opposite Stanwyck in other movies should be noted. Her loving and doting father, BF, a self-made millionaire and industrial-capitalist is not immune to shedding a tear when his daughter announces that she plans to elope, and he blames it on the sun in his eyes. He is played with the feisty charm of Charles Colburn who was seven years earlier her loving and doting father in THE LADY EVE. Quite similarly, her mother played here so effectively by Spring Byington was also her sweet, and widowed mother in MEET JOHN DOE. The only real difference in Miss Byington's two mothers is their social statuses, but both were patient and kind and ready to yield advice when asked based on what their husbands would have said. Then there is Martin Ainsley, a somewhat lovable antagonist, played by Keenan Wynn who is both a commentator against the rich, and later a war correspondent who was always making monumentally incorrect predictions concerning the unfolding drama of the dawning of the Second World War almost to the point of being comical. His real name, Francis Xavier Aloysius James Jeremiah Keenan Wynn, was a comic piece in itself, and in real life, he was the son of actor-comedian Ed Wynn and Hilda Keenan
Perhaps it is because I had the attitude that too much work goes into making a movie for it to be dismissed as totally worthless, as some critics would, that I wanted to find the good of this story. There is a very telling line delivered by Polly's best friend, Apples, about marriages, also expressed by BJ in another scene in a slightly different way, which said that marriage is not always the same as in the books but it's still worth fighting for. Some have said that this movie was not faithful to the book on which it was based and it could have been a better movie if it had been. Is this news? In Hollywood, I think, this is the norm rather than the exception. If I were writing a review of a car made in the United Kingdom, I would hesitate to be critical of the fact that the stirring wheel is on the right side of the vehicle. I restate my original claim that this movie chose to emphasize personal relationships over worldly and political issues. Perhaps a movie like Striesand's and Redford's THE WAY WE WERE did a much better job of clashing love and politics some twenty six years later, as many movies do, I'm sure, but that one quickly comes to mind. Polly worshipped the ground that her father walked on and he wanted her to be happy above all else. His influence was quite evident and he was the more dominant of the two parents throughout the movie. I loved the sarcastic toast that Tom made to his father-in-law at dinner which said: `To BF from whom all blessings flow: ' True to style, the sarcasm was totally lost on Mrs. BF who remarked, `That's really sweet, Tom.' A more subtle influence from her mother should be noted by the way Polly wanted to be both needed and dominated my the men in her life. The scene where her mother discovers Polly with a needle and thread is an amusing one. It was, of course, for mending her suitor's (Heflin's) coat. Upon visiting her fiancé's rather plain and unadorned apartment for the first time after he has declined her financial advice based on a tip she assumed from her father, her second assumption was that this would be where she could finally do something to help her struggling up-and-coming-junior-executive-fiancé but he is too morally correct and proud to be interested in her plans. She leaves thinking that he is an iron man, cold and heartless, much like the symbolic iron man clock that the Fultons have in their home, which strikes a resounding blows for each hour that passes. He even promises her that when they are married, they will have iron animals on their lawn in New Jersey, but her eyes have a faraway look in them that says `South Seas.' A few scenes later a turning point comes early in the movie when Polly asks her fiancé, who was also her childhood sweetheart, to forbid her to go to the Speakeasy with her friend Apples, and he says that he would wait until they are married. However, at the Speakeasy the first thing that the new man-to-be in her life, played by Van Heflin, says to her is that he would forbid her from coming to such a place with anyone other than himself. Later when she complains about his missing button and torn suit, she replies, `you look awful from top to bottom.' His response was, `Why don't you improve me.' Nobody can say that he didn't ask for it. When he asks her to go with him to the South Seas, their fate is sealed. As great an actress as she was, even Miss Stanwyck admitted that she was in her share of bad movies, but I also remember reading once in the biography STARRING MISS BARBARA STANWYCK by Ella Smith where she said that nobody ever sets out to make a bad movie, but once you realize that is isn't going to turn out as well as you hoped, it still deserved the best you could give of yourself. Here we have in a sentence the legendary professionalism of this eternal star. Even if this movie is not all that it should be, just look for the silver lining. It's Barbara Stanwyck.