On Our Merry Way

Not the "rediscovered gem from the Golden Age of Cinema" as it is proclaimed on the Kino Video DVD case, but a curiosity nonetheless. It is an anthology movie with four different stories tied together by a young Burgess Meredith asking the question "How has a child influenced your life?" The most successful sequence (directed by the unbilled John Huston & George Stevens) involves James Stewart and Henry Fonda as a couple of down-on-their-luck musicians. Not only is it great to see these two real-life pals work together for the first time, but their chemistry & easy slapstick antics are quite funny. Seeing Henry Fonda playing the trumpet while gradually getting seasick, and taking Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer down with him, is worth the whole movie. I guess the copyright on O. Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief" had expired as the Fred MacMurray, William Demerest sequence (years before they were teamed again on T.V.'s "My Three Sons") is a blatant and not very inspired rip-off.

This odd, freewheeling, independently-made compendium film emerges as little more than a glorified home movie (despite the considerable talent involved) but is certainly watchable and entertaining in itself. The linking narrative revolves around married couple Burgess Meredith and Paulette Goddard (at the time hitched in real life): she's an artist and he a lowly employee with a newspaper aspiring to be a journalist; while attempting to flee a creditor, he meets and interviews a number of people about the influence of children in their lives.

The three 'stories' are quite nice with all the various performers contributing generous and relaxed cameos: the first concerns down-and-out musicians Henry Fonda and James Stewart and their involvement in an instrumental contest taking place in a small town (they're all too ready to appease the mayor who has promised them a lot of money if his son is allowed to win but, thanks to the intervention of trumpeter Harry James, a multi-talented girl emerges the clear winner and eventually becomes the owner of Fonda and Stewart's band!); the second finds Dorothy Lamour parodying her former image of a sarong girl (she's a bit player whose opportunity for stardom finally arises out of a disastrous stint in a vehicle for a spoilt child star); the last story, reminiscent of O. Henry's "The Ransom Of Red Chief" (later filmed by Howard Hawks), involves ex-con magician Fred MacMurray and how he and his partner William Demarest stumble upon a boy in the woods and are continually outwitted by him (he's actually fleeing from his eccentric banker uncle but MacMurray eventually discovers his true identity and, in the end, the boy and his elder sister join in on the magic act).

This three-vignettes-in-a-frame movie is not all bad. Indeed, the first segment features Henry Fonda and James Stewart in a brilliant comic pas de deux which leaves you wondering why they didn't become a cinematic pair. Given that the plot-ette they work with is unremarkable, their joint performance is even more of a miracle and a treat. Also fun is the little jazz score, which features not only Stewart doing his own tasteful piano comping, but also a guest appearance by Harry James, who not only provides the behind-the scenes music of the trumpet-playing "babe" but actually puts his mug in as well.

The second story is a bit weaker, though Dorothy Lamour does a song and dance number that sends up contemporary Hollywood clichés in a wittily sophisticated manner.

The last sequence, however, is truly lame: the pacing is slow and all the actors (especially child actor David Whorf) are annoying. The zany Hugh Herbert nicely finesses a small role but his little performance can't save the segment.

The frame itself is also uninspired, but not so deadly that it drags the film down.

Had the last two segments been as marvelous as the first, this entire movie would have been a classic. But in any case, you simply must see it for the Steward-Fonda collaboration. They command the film from the moment the camera turns on them and never disappoint.

Interesting story that doesn't know where it wants to go - I won't be as harsh on this film as other posters. That's perhaps because I know a little about the personal lives of two of it's stars, Burgess Meredith and Paulette Goddard. I just watched this on Kino's DVD. It's one of those rare films with multiple directors and long thought lost. Burgess Meredith and Paulette Goddard get things started for us n the opening and make a cute couple(they were married in real life at the time) and she calls him Oliver, Meredith's real life first name. Meredith plays a newspaper guy and for some reason asks the question "has a child made a difference in your life?" He is IMO trying to get an answer to make something tick for his newspaper article and/or for personal reasons ??. Though this is a scripted film the question, one get's the feeling, is a personal one for Meredith and Goddard, for in real life in 1944 Goddard suffered a miscarriage of their child, probably devastating to both of them. Unless you know that bit of trivia you won't pay but fleeting attention to the conversation between Burgess and Paulette. As stated in the summary this film has to be one of the first motion pictures to show a husband and wife sleeping together in the same bed, which is impressive considering the Breen Production Code in effect at the time. Married couples however would continue to sleep in twin beds until TV shows like The Brady Bunch in the late 1960s. The film pairs off into too many directions first with James Stewart and Henry Fonda, then with Fred MacMurray and William Demarest. Stewart and Fonda were friends in real life and that holds something for fans of the pair but their story is aimless. The duo put on a variety show reminiscent of today's American Idol. MacMurray and Demarest would famously work together again in the mid 60s on My Three Sons, after Demarest replaced William Frawley who became ill and died. MacMurray and Demarest have their comic moments especially with a precocious(in a bad way) little boy called "Sniffles". Demarest is too old for the kind of physical slapstick he's subjected to here. All in all another aimless scene. Dorothy Lamour shows up as a cutie who later dons a sarong in a musical revue. A voluptuous piece of cheesecake, famous for playing the island girl in the Crosby-Hope 'Road' pictures, her stay is all too short. This film should have stayed focused on the interesting beginnings with Meredith and Goddard. Meredith himself is not involved enough in the linking stories to make the finale cohesive. He finds what ever answer/lesson he's looking for but the audience has been shuttled from one minor point to the next. Paulette at the close of the film reveals that she's pregnant(only in the story) and she and Meredith rejoice at end. Their story should have been the main focus of the film and dare the subject of talking about pregnancy which I get at the conclusion that that's what the story was about. Instead we're taken from one inconsequential story to the next without logical tie-in to Meredith and Goddard. That's why I think so many people miss the point and poo-poo the film. But if you know the different junctures of the film especially the part with Burgess Meredith and Paulette Goddard you should be able to enjoy the picture.

And then just sinks into boredom.

Martha Pease (Paulette Goddard) demands that her husband Oliver (Burgess Meredith) tell the newspaper where he works as the "Roving Reporter" that he be allowed to pick his own subjects. She will know if he did that by reading the next edition's Rambling Reporter column and seeing that his idea - How has a small child influenced your life? - is the theme of the column.

After leaving his apartment that morning Oliver confesses to the audience that he is not the Roving Reporter. He is in fact just a classified ad clerk, but that he told his wife this lie before they were married and hasn't had the heart to tell her the truth ever since. As a result he has been lying about his salary and thus he is in peril of having his furniture repossessed and he owes gambling debts. This is all very interesting, but then it just bogs down. And that is hard to believe when one of the vignettes involving people on the street actually being interviewed includes James Stewart and Henry Fonda, good friends in real life, on screen together.

When I first sat down to watch this I wondered why I had never heard of this one. By the time it finished I knew the answer to that question. Avoid.