Editing Penny Serenade

{{Short description|1941 film by George Stevens}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Penny Serenade
| image          = Penny Serenade 1941 Poster.jpg
| alt            = 
| caption        = Theatrical release poster
| director       = [[George Stevens]]
| producer       = George Stevens
| screenplay     = [[Morrie Ryskind]]
| based_on       = {{based on|''Penny Serenade''<br>(1940 ''[[McCall's]]'' story)|[[Martha Cheavens]]}}
| starring       = [[Irene Dunne]]<br>[[Cary Grant]]<br>[[Beulah Bondi]]
| music          = [[W. Franke Harling]]
| cinematography = [[Joseph Walker (cinematographer)|Joseph Walker]]
| editing        = [[Otto Meyer (film editor)|Otto Meyer]]
| color_process  = [[Black and white]]
| studio         = [[Columbia Pictures]]
| distributor    = Columbia Pictures
| released       = {{Film date|1941|04|24|USA}}
| runtime        = 120 minutes
| country        = United States
| language       = English
| budget         = 
| gross          = $835,000<ref name="dick">Dick, Bernard Dick (1993). ''The Merchant Prince of Poverty Row: Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures''. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, p. 160.</ref>
}}

'''''Penny Serenade''''' is a 1941 American [[melodrama film]] directed by [[George Stevens]] starring [[Irene Dunne]] and [[Cary Grant]] as a loving couple who must overcome adversity to keep their marriage and raise a child. It was produced and distributed by [[Columbia Pictures]]. Grant was nominated for the [[Academy Award for Best Actor]] for his performance.

==Plot==
[[File:Penny Serenade (1941) by George Stevens.webm | thumb | left | thumbtime=20|''Penny Serenade'' (1941)]]
The film charts the meeting, courtship and marriage of Julie Gardiner ([[Irene Dunne]]) and Roger Adams ([[Cary Grant]]) through the playing of popular songs relevant to each time period. After their spur-of-the-moment marriage on New Year's Eve and a night in Roger's train compartment en route to [[San Francisco]], a pregnant Julie rejoins Roger in [[Tokyo]], where he has a stint as a reporter. Julie loses their unborn child in the [[1923 Great Kantō earthquake|1923 Tokyo earthquake]]<ref name=wlrn>{{cite web |url=https://www.wlrn.org/post/love-endures-all-penny-serenade#stream/0|title=Love endures all in Penny Serenade|first=Mia|last=Laurenzo|date=January 30, 2019|access-date=February 23, 2020|work=[[WLRN-FM]]}}</ref> and returns with Roger to California. They are despondent until their friend Applejack Carney ([[Edgar Buchanan]]) encourages them to adopt a child. While Roger struggles to keep a newspaper going in the fictional California town of Rosalia, Julie keeps house and fits out the nursery.

They apply at an adoption agency for a two-year-old boy, and receive a call from Miss Oliver ([[Beulah Bondi]]) that a five-week-old baby girl is available. Though Roger would have preferred a boy, he falls in love with the baby, and he and Julie care for her during their one-year probation period. At the end of that time, Roger has lost the newspaper, and the law prevents him from adopting the baby without an income. Roger appears before the judge and delivers an impassioned plea to keep the child, whom he considers his own. The judge awards custody, and Roger returns home to Julie with their daughter.

Years later, Roger and Julie swell with pride as their daughter, Trina, not yet old enough to play an angel in the Christmas play, plays the "echo" instead. The following Christmas, Julie writes to Miss Oliver that Trina has died from a sudden illness. The child's death sends Roger into a deep depression, and Julie resolves to leave him, believing he no longer needs her. Just as she is about to leave for the train station, the couple receive a phone call from Miss Oliver, saying that a two-year-old boy has just become available for adoption. Roger and Julie embrace, ready to rebuild their marriage with a new child.

==Cast==
* [[Irene Dunne]] as Julie Gardiner (Adams)
* [[Cary Grant]] as Roger Adams
* [[Beulah Bondi]] as Miss Oliver
* [[Edgar Buchanan]] as Applejack Carney
* [[Ann Doran]] as Dotty "Dot"
* [[Eva Lee Kuney]] as Trina (age 6)
* Leonard Willey as Doctor Hartley
* [[Wallis Clark]] as Judge
* Walter Soderling as Billings
* Jane Biffle (listed as "Baby Biffle" in end-credits) as Trina (age 1)

==Production==
[[File:Penny Serenade 4.jpg|right|thumb|Grant and Dunne with Baby Biffle in a scene from the film]]

===Development=== 
For $25,000, Columbia Pictures purchased the rights to a story by [[Martha Cheavens]] published in ''[[McCall's]]'' and engaged Cheavens as script consultant.<ref name=afi>{{cite web |url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/27033|title=Penny Serenade (1941)|work=[[American Film Institute]] Catalog|year=2020|access-date=February 23, 2020}}</ref> [[Morrie Ryskind]] was credited for the screenplay.

The film depicts the passage of time through the playing of songs. According to [[George Stevens]]' papers stored at the [[Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]] library, Stevens kept close track of the chronology of the songs to accurately match them to the different time periods in the script. These songs include "[[The Japanese Sandman]]", "[[These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)|These Foolish Things]]", "[[1927 in music|Just a Memory]]", "[[Three O'Clock in the Morning]]", "[[Ain't We Got Fun]]", and "[[The Prisoner's Song]]".<ref name=afi/>

===Casting===
''Penny Serenade'' is the third of three films pairing Grant and Dunne, each time playing a married couple.<ref name=wlrn/>

At the time, California law restricted the time an infant could be present in a film studio to two hours per day; during that time, the infant could be kept on a sound stage for only one hour, and be filmed under the studio lights for only twenty minutes at a time. To double the amount of time he could film the character of Trina both as a baby and as a one-year-old, Stevens hired identical twin girls for Trina at each age.<ref name=afi/> The baby was played by Judith and Dianna Fleetwood, and the one-year-old by Joan and Jane Biffle.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/46695206/the-des-moines-register/|title=Film briefs|newspaper=[[The Des Moines Register]]|date=January 12, 1941|page=51|via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}{{open access}}</ref>

===Filming===
Filming took place from October 14, 1940 to January 15, 1941.<ref name=afi/>

==Release== 
The film was released on April 24, 1941.<ref name=afi/> For its promotion in Philadelphia, Ray Wolf, Manager of Affiliated circuit's Frolic Theatre, distributed chocolate pennies both door to door as well as on busy street corners during rush hours.<ref>(1941) Motion Picture Herald. September-October. New York: Quigley Pub. Co. p.61.</ref>

==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/>

==Accolades==
Grant was nominated for the [[Academy Award for Best Actor]] for his performance.<ref name=afi/> He lost to [[Gary Cooper]]'s portrayal of ''[[Sergeant York (film)|Sergeant York]]'' at the [[14th Academy Awards]].

==Adaptations==
''Penny Serenade'' was dramatized as a half-hour radio play on the November 16, 1941, broadcast of ''[[The Screen Guild Theater]]'', starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in their original roles.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=OCJPAAAAIBAJ&pg=6245%2C3395674&q=%22Dunne%22 |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Your Radio Today |page=38 |newspaper=St. Petersburg Times (Florida) |date=1941-11-16 |access-date=2018-01-31 }}</ref> It was also presented as an hour-long drama on ''[[Lux Radio Theater]]'', first on April 27, 1942, with [[Robert Taylor (American actor)|Robert Taylor]] and [[Barbara Stanwyck]],<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=N1IbAAAAIBAJ&pg=1409%2C5936904&q=%22Penny%22 |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Pittsburgh Radio Programs |page=7 |newspaper=The Pittsburgh Press |date=1942-04-27 |access-date=2018-01-31 }}</ref> and then on May 8, 1944, starring [[Joseph Cotten]] and Irene Dunne.<ref name=Brooklyn>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/53862918/?terms=%22Radio+Theater+Irene+Dunne+Joseph+Cotten%22 |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Radio Programs |newspaper=The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (New York) |page=15 |date=1944-05-08 |access-date=2020-09-20}}</ref> Dunne again starred in July 1953 on [[CBS Radio]]'s ''[[General Electric Theater]]''.<ref>{{cite magazine| url= http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,889830,00.html | archive-url= https://archive.today/20130204134712/http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,889830,00.html | url-status= dead | archive-date= February 4, 2013 | title= RADIO: Program Preview |date= July 20, 1953 | magazine=Time |access-date=2010-12-31}}</ref>
 
A television adaptation for ''[[Lux Video Theatre]]'', starring [[Phyllis Thaxter]] and [[Don Taylor (American filmmaker)|Don Taylor]], was broadcast on January 13, 1955, on NBC.<ref name=afi/>

==Copyright status and home media==
The copyright on ''Penny Serenade'' was not renewed when its initial 28-year term expired and it entered the [[public domain]] in 1970.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/37139|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090115024336/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/37139|url-status=dead|archive-date=2009-01-15|title=Welcome to the Public Domain|publisher=Stanford University Libraries}}</ref> Subsequently, the film has seen many releases by budget labels on various home video formats, but all are of very poor quality and most, but not all, are missing a pivotal five-minute scene in which Grant pleads with a judge to be allowed to adopt despite the failure of his newspaper.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=8224|title=Penny Serenade DVD Comparison|publisher=DVD Compare}}</ref>

The original elements are now with [[Paramount Global]] (under [[Paramount Pictures]]), via the company's former [[Republic Pictures]] library. Using these elements, ''Penny Serenade'' has been released uncut and in high quality on Blu-ray and DVD in the US (Olive Films, 2013) and Germany (Alive, 2017).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=50513|title=Penny Serenade Blu-ray Comparison|publisher=DVD Compare}}</ref>

==In popular culture==
The main character in [[Ang Lee]]'s ''[[Lust, Caution]]'' (2007) watches ''Penny Serenade'' in a Shanghai movie theater showing Western films.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WTMzBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA167|title=The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen|first=Whitney Crothers |last=Dilley|year=2014|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=9780231538497|edition=2nd|page=167}}</ref>

In the film ''[[Thelma & Louise]]'' (1991), state police and FBI personnel watch ''Penny Serenade'' on late-night television while monitoring a [[Telephone tapping|phone tap]] at Thelma's home in Arkansas. (Only the film's audio is briefly heard.)<ref>{{cite web |title=Penny Serenade (1941) - Connections / Featured in... |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034012/movieconnections |website=IMDb.com |access-date=Apr 28, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Thelma and Louise (1991) questions and answers |url=https://www.moviemistakes.com/film1273/questions |website=moviemistakes.com |access-date=Apr 28, 2021}}</ref>

In [[The Sopranos]] episode "[[The Weight (The Sopranos)|The Weight]]" (2002), Ginny Sacrimoni claims to be up late because ''Penny Serenade'' was on AMC, when in fact she was weighing herself.

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
* {{Internet Archive film|id=penny_serenade}}
* {{IMDb title|0034012|Penny Serenade}}
* [https://www.allmovie.com/movie/penny-serenade-am9792 ''Penny Serenade'' at AllMovie]
* {{YouTube|2XiNtZJItjE|''Penny Serenade''}}
* {{TCMDb title|id=5818}}
* {{AFI film|id=27033|title=Penny Serenade}}

;Streaming audio
* [https://archive.org/download/ScreenGuildTheater/Sgt_41-11-16_ep091_Penny_Serenade.mp3 ''Penny Serenade''] on [[Screen Guild Theater]]: November 16, 1941 
* [https://archive.org/download/Lux07/lux_1942-04-27_PennySerenade.mp3 ''Penny Serenade''] on [[Lux Radio Theater]]: April 27, 1942
* [https://archive.org/download/Lux09/Lux_44-05-08_Penny_Serenade.mp3 ''Penny Serenade''] on [[Lux Radio Theater]]: May 8, 1944
* [https://archive.org/download/GeneralElectricTheater/GET_53-07-23_ep03-Penny_Serenade.mp3 ''Penny Serenade''] on [[General Electric Theater]]: July 23, 1953

{{George Stevens}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Penny Serenade}}
[[Category:1941 films]]
[[Category:1941 romantic drama films]]
[[Category:1940s American films]]
[[Category:1940s English-language films]]
[[Category:1940s melodrama films]]
[[Category:American black-and-white films]]
[[Category:American romantic drama films]]
[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
[[Category:Columbia Pictures films]]
[[Category:English-language romantic drama films]]
[[Category:Films about adoption]]
[[Category:Films based on short fiction]]
[[Category:Films directed by George Stevens]]
[[Category:Films scored by W. Franke Harling]]
[[Category:Films set in California]]
[[Category:Films set in Japan]]
[[Category:Japan in non-Japanese culture]]