La madre pródiga

Mabel Paige has lived quietly at the residential hotel as long as anyone can remember. Then it's sold to the university for a men's dormitory, and Charles Dingle explains that she has to leave. But she has a lifetime lease, and she won't leave, because he son quarreled with her husband when he was in college and cut off all contact. But she expects him to return one of these days, and how will he find her? She explains this so charmingly over tea that Dingle, doesn't know what to do. He makes some efforts at the orders of the college board, but they give up, and she is left in her apartment. The college boys are charmed too, and so was I. Who would have thought that Robert Siodmak, who specialized in grizzly films noir, could direct something so charming?

Alas, you can't fill an 80-minute movie on charm, so the plot advances, with John Craven turning up in the dorm with the same name as Miss Paige's son. She is convinced he is her grandson and the great reconciliation will take place when his father and mother return from South America. And she has to manage his affair with Dorothy Morris, to make sure the youngsters are married. This section is not as good as the plotless start the movie, but it certainly has its moments, like the waltz scene.