Editing Penny Serenade (section)

==Critical reception==
[[File:Cary Grant-Irene Dunne in Penny Serenade.jpg|thumb|right|Grant and Dunne in ''Penny Serenade'']]
On the film review website [[Rotten Tomatoes]], ''Penny Serenade'' receives a "Fresh" rating with 93% (16 of 17) of its T-meter critics reviewed the film positively.<ref>[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/penny_serenade Penny Serenade]. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2008-08-13.</ref> ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' commended both the direction and the acting for lifting the script out of maudlin melodrama. Describing the plot elements as "tenderness, heart-throb, comedy and good, old-fashioned, gulping tears", the review notes: "Half a dozen times the yarn approaches the saccharine, only to be turned back into sound, human comedy-drama".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/1940/film/reviews/penny-serenade-1200413520/|title=Penny Serenade|date=December 30, 1940|work=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]|access-date=February 23, 2020}}</ref> A ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' review also lauded Stevens' direction, stating: "Grant and Dunne cannot overcome the ten-little-fingers-and-ten-little-toes plot ... it is too often a moving picture which does not move. Skillful direction saves it from turning maudlin".<ref name="timemag">{{cite magazine| url= http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,795226,00.html | archive-url= https://archive.today/20130204083758/http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,795226,00.html | url-status= dead | archive-date= February 4, 2013 | title= The New Pictures |date=May 5, 1941| magazine=Time | access-date=2010-12-31}}</ref> ''[[Radio Times]]'' said that Grant "gives a lesson in screen acting and was rightly Oscar-nominated for a superb, subtly-shaded portrayal that keeps sentimentality at bay".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.radiotimes.com/film/ftd5hx/penny-serenade/|title=Penny Serenade|first=Tony|last=Sloman|year=2020|access-date=February 23, 2020|work=[[Radio Times]]}}</ref>

When the movie premiered at the [[Radio City Music Hall]], [[Bosley Crowther]], in a somewhat ambivalent review, concludes "[there is] some very credible acting on the part of Mr. Grant and Miss Dunne is responsible in the main for the infectious quality of the film. [[Edgar Buchanan]], too, gives an excellent performance as a good-old-Charlie friend, and [[Beulah Bondi]] is sensible as an orphanage matron. Heart-warming is the word for both of them. As a matter of fact, the whole picture deliberately cozies up to the heart. [[Noël Coward]] once dryly observed how extraordinarily potent cheap music is. That is certainly true of ''Penny Serenade''".<ref>{{cite news| author= Bosley Crowther| author-link= Bosley Crowther| title= Cary Grant and Irene Dunne Play a ''Penny Serenade'' at the Music Hall | url= https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9A07E2D81F3DE33BBC4B51DFB366838A659EDE | newspaper= [[The New York Times]] | access-date= 2010-12-31 | date=May 23, 1941}}</ref>

Grant considered his role in ''Penny Serenade'' as his best performance.<ref name=afi/> Dunne often remarked that this was her favorite film "because it reminded her of her own adopted daughter".<ref name=wlrn/>