Penny Serenade

1941

Penny Serenade

Critics Consensus

No consensus yet.

93%

TOMATOMETER

Total Count: 15

75%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 5,205
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Penny Serenade Photos

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Movie Info

While listening to a recording of "Penny Serenade," Julie Gardiner Adams (Irene Dunne) begins reflecting on her past. She recalls her near-impulsive marriage to newspaper reporter Roger Adams (Cary Grant), which begins on a deliriously happy note but turns out to be fraught with tragedy. While honeymooning in Japan, Julie and Roger are trapped in the 1923 earthquake, which results in her miscarriage and subsequent incapability to bear children. Upon their return to America, Roger becomes editor of a small-town newspaper, just scraping by financially. Despite their depleted resources, Julie and Roger want desperately to adopt a child. It seems hopeless until kindly adoption agency head Miss Oliver (Beulah Bondi) helps smooth their path. Alas, their happiness is once more short-lived: their new daughter, Trina (Eva Lee Kuney), succumbs to a sudden illness at the age of six. Reduced to hopelessness, Julie and Roger decide to dissolve their marriage, but Miss Oliver once more comes to the rescue. Sentimental in the extreme, Penny Serenade is also enormously effective, balancing moments of heartbreaking pathos with uproarious laughter. Only director George Stevens could have handled a scene with a copiously weeping Cary Grant without inducing discomfort or embarrassment in the audience. Since lapsing into the public domain in 1968 (though released by Columbia, the film was owned by Stevens' production firm), Penny Serenade has become almost as ubiquitous a cable-TV presence as It's a Wonderful Life.

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Cast

Cary Grant
as Roger Adams
Irene Dunne
as Julie Gardiner Adams
Edgar Buchanan
as Applejack Carney
Ann Doran
as Dotty "Dot"
Beulah Bondi
as Miss Oliver
Eva Lee Kuney
as Trina age 6
Leonard Willey
as Dr. Hartley
Wallis Clark
as Judge
Walter Soderling
as Billings
Baby Biffle
as Trina age 1
Edmund Elton
as Minister
Billy Bevan
as McDougal
Nee Wong Jr.
as Sung Chong
Adrian Morris
as Bill Collector
Grady Sutton
as Man
Stanley Brown
as Man
Beryl Vaughn
as Flower Girl
John Tyrrell
as Press Operator
Iris Han
as Ohanna-San
Otto Han
as Sam the Cook
Ben Taggart
as Policeman
Frank Moran
as Cab Driver
Lynton Brent
as Reporter
Al Seymour
as Bootlegger
Dick Wessel
as Joe
Charles Flynn
as Bob
Jack Buchanan
Arline Jackson
as Girl
Mary Bovard
as Girl
Georgia Hawkins
as Girl
Fred 'Snowflake' Toones
as Train Porter
Edward Peil Sr.
as Train Conductor
Eddie Laughton
as Cab Driver
Doris Herbert
as Minister's Wife
Bess Flowers
as Mother
John Ferguson
as Father
Lani Lee
as Chinese Waitress
Rollin Moriyama
as Rickshaw Boy
Ben Kumagai
as Rickshaw Boy
Lillian West
as Nurse
Henry Dixon
as Old Printer
Dorothy Adams
as Mother
Albert Butterfield
as Boy
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Critic Reviews for Penny Serenade

All Critics (15) | Top Critics (4)

View All Critic Reviews (15)

Audience Reviews for Penny Serenade

  • Feb 04, 2014
    A weeper. It is interesting to see Cary Grant in very uncomfortable situations. It veers too much into the soap opera realm but is nonetheless a good afternoon film.
    John B Super Reviewer
  • Apr 10, 2013
    Love, marriage, and parenthood, all the bittersweet magnificence of life is on display in "Penny Serenade", a sentimental little film from 1941. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne star as the lovers who, as the movie opens, seem doomed to separate. As she's packing to leave her husband, she finds a box of old records and begins to listen to them. Each record is tied to a specific place and time in her mind, unlocking memories that show a relationship unfold as the movie progresses. The song she was playing at the record store where she worked when they first met or the song that reminded her of the time they spent living in Japan, each is a poignant little chapter in the lives of these two people. But why is she leaving her husband? The answer reveals itself slowly and tragically. It's said that the human body is simply a vehicle for genes needing to replicate (Agent Scully, X-Files, season 4, episode 2), so the suggestion is that a body unable to reproduce might lose its purpose. If I can find any fault in "Penny Serenade", it's that the ending is wrapped up a little too neatly and perhaps a little too callously. There are some things in life you can't just kiss and make better. There are some losses that can't be cooled with an ice cream cone on the ride home. Dunne and Grant both deliver career-highlight performances (Grant was in fact, nominated for an Oscar), and maybe the ending was an audience appeasement. After all, when we've invested so much emotion into the characters, it would be cruel not to give some light at the end of the tunnel.
    Devon B Super Reviewer
  • Sep 05, 2010
    This is a very sentimental, sappy, but realistic drama of a young couple. It's good, but I'm not a big fan of the film, although I loved Grant in it.
    Aj V Super Reviewer
  • Jun 23, 2010
    Such a sad-y! My biggest problem with this film was the time passage in records. Cutting back to Irene Dunne and all she did was change records, circle into "a few years" later deal and it got old. There are better ways to tell passage of time. That aside, Cary Grant's cracking voice in the courtroom teared me up. The man is such an acting god.
    Jennifer D Super Reviewer
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