That's not my baby

Bachelor Mother (1939, Garson Kanin) is an unwed mother pro-life screwball comedy about child rearing that romanticizes starting a family. Thus far it also might be the screwball with the most instances of misleading appearances leading to false assumptions. 

     The premise is so very screwball. Temp gets let go. Picks up a baby left on a doorstep. Gets hired on fulltime and given a raise because of it. Later there’ll be another time deception gets her her job back. When she fabricates a history of domestic assault pointing to her temple and saying “coffee pot.” What can I say? I love laughing at the darkest things that aren’t funny. I love comedies that can make something not funny funny.

     Another of the elements I define the screwball by is class conflict. It Happened One Night (1934, Frank Capra) uses its narrative as a platform to exhort us about it. And we get plenty of a variation of class conflict, which is the Cinderella rags to riches fantasy. But for me the one I best relate to is the impossibility of vertical upwards class mobility. Bachelor Mother is set in motion with the understanding that it’s only a matter of time before POLLY PARRISH (Ginger Rogers) and DAVID MERLIN (David Niven) fall in love. (Okay first though let’s not even mention that this is also yet another screwball about a low level employee marrying her boss.) But into the second act at the New Year’s Eve party what does that say about vertical class mobility that David chooses to have Polly pass herself off as someone who can’t speak English (daughter of a Swedish manufacturer) instead of risking her being unable to converse with the party guests. Of course how could she possibly socialize with those above her? She’s merely a peasant. 

     As Bachelor Mother exists in the world of screwball, it’s a wonderful example too of illusion becoming reality. David using Polly to pretend she’s his date turns into them becoming romantically matched after having some chemistry. Plot twist is Polly pretending the baby is hers in turn turns off David. (But only briefly. We know he’s to come back around.) Seriously their first kiss on New Year’s Eve in that huge crowd all singing in New York is such a moving uplifting American sentimental flourish.

     For its time, this movie has a very impressive effective tracking shot of a Donald Duck toy falling down the stairs that tells us David has realized he’s in love with Polly that is quite stunning. This film strikes a balance between clever, compassionate, and ambitious. And it’s summed up best in that last moment David hugs her and when she asks him if she still thinks he’s the mother of the baby and he says “of course,” she slyly delivers that “ha ha” is such a perfect denouement.