PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

JohnHowardReid An M-G-M Picture, copyright 13 February 1948 by Loew's Inc. U.S. release: April 1948. U.K. release: 24 January 1949. New York opening at Loew's State: 24 March 1948. Australian release: 1 July 1948. 10,046 feet. 111 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Tycoon's daughter seeks to dominate her husband.NOTES: Irene was nominated for an Academy Award for Black & White Costume Design, losing to Roger Furse's Hamlet.The full 111-minute version was released only in Australia. Elsewhere the movie was cut by three or four minutes. Needless to say, the full-length movie has never been aired on TV. In fact it was shortened to a mere 73 minutes when last broadcast in the 1970s.COMMENT: Even in its 73-minute version, this is a very mediocre offering. The idea of the impecunious husband treating his rich father-in-law like dirt is a nice turnabout, but as scripted, played and directed here, it is no more effective than a damp squib. Admittedly, the film has been made with M-G-M's customary surface gloss, but this serves only to point up the more the superficiality of the situations and the stock motivations of the characters.Richard Hart goes through his part like a sleepwalker while Margaret Lindsay seems determined to melt into the background so that none of her fans will notice her. The only interesting feature of the film is the appearance of Barbara Laage making her film debut as a blind and rather plain-looking refugee - a far cry from the glamorous parts she was later to enjoy!

ksf-2 Viewers will recognize Charles Coburn from Gentlemen Prefer Blonds & Monkey Business. Here he plays Burton Fulton, successful businessman, father to Polly (Barbara Stanwyck). Co-stars Van Heflin, Keenan Wynn, and Spring Byington round out the familiar faces in "BF's Daughter". Polly falls for Tom Brett (Heflin) and they talk about "eating in speak-easys" and "the depression", but this was made in 1948, and it sure looks like 1948 throughout. This was written by John Marquand, who had also written some of the Mr. Moto books. The film feels a lot like the Magnificent Ambersons, which had come out six years before -- story of a rich family, and how the offspring deals with changing times. Very serious storyline... the only humor is the ongoing joke of repeatedly calling one of the locals by the wrong name. When Polly tries to help Tom with his career, things don't work out as she wanted. Stanwyck also made "Sorry Wrong Number" right after this in 1948 - THAT role got her nominated for an Oscar... but not THIS one. The script needs some spicing up, or something. Everything and everyone is technically competent, but there's something lacking.

nickandrew Glossy, slow-moving and inconsistent soap opera with heiress (Stanwyck) marrying college professor (Heflin), but they realize their true love for each other years later. Performances are good, except Heflin, who seems out of place. Also, the script is a mess, to say the least. *1/2 out of **** for this one.

fordraff This film is based on a best-selling 1946 novel by John P. Marquand, which satirized a number of aspects of American society between 1932 and 1946, among them liberal and conservative views, the discrepancy between the wealthy and the ordinary folk, and lesser items like radio commentators who didn't know much but didn't let that stop them from sounding off, overbearing Pentagon brass, marriages made on the rebound and so on. However, you'll find precious little of the satire in this film version. MGM turned Marquand's novel into a "women's picture" that enforces what were considered in the late 40s to be the proper roles a man and woman should perform.The plot deals with Polly Fulton, the adventurous daughter of a wealthy industrialist, who decides she doesn't want to marry the stuffed shirt she's engaged to, though he's a decent enough chap. Instead, she will marry a man with ideas, someone a bit off the beaten paths she knows: an assistant professor of economics at Columbia University. (Live dangerously. Ha!) In this limited space, I can't detail much plot beyond indicating that the financial discrepancy between the wife and the husband lead to problems that bring them to the brink of divorce. One point the film is enforcing is that women should not emasculate their husbands by providing financial aid to them. "Hubby" should be the bread winner, even if the wife is wealthy.Before Polly's father dies, he asks her if she's happy in her marriage. She admits that she is not. Now B.F. tells her, "Marriage is an investment. It's like a business. Fight for your marriage." Polly's best friend tells her, "Lots of marriages aren't the way they say they are in books. But they are worth fighting for." So much for this film's philosophy. At the film's conclusion, when Polly's husband is about to leave her, she runs after him, shouting, "Oh, Tom. Don't go! I need you!" With that Tom enfolds her in his arms and says, "Oh, Polly, that's all I've been waiting to hear" and kisses her. Marriage saved. Does this sound like something you want to see today?In the novel, Tom had had an affair, and the marriage was not saved. But this film version is so gutless that it doesn't even allow Tom the affair. Instead, the woman Tom is rumored to be keeping turns out to be an escapee from a concentration camp for whom Tom is acting as a Good Samaritan.In addition, Tom takes back a good many things he'd said earlier in the film, telling Polly he was wrong about her wealthy father, wrong about Robert Tasmin, the Ivy-League educated lawyer Polly was about to marry, calling him "a real gentleman, after all." The movie simply affirms upper-middle-class values and, in fact, makes it clear that it's better to be wealthy, even if that might have some negative effects on a marriage at first. I mean, only animal-rights activists are going to forsake those full-length mink coats that Stanwyck sports here, and some of them might even prove weak when put to the test.The film has fine production values, though there is absolutely no sense of period detail. Everything is happening in 1948 fashions, and although the film covers fifteen years, no one ages a whit.Stanwyck and Van Heflin are clearly too old to play the young Polly and Tom, but, once the two are married, they immediately become 40-somethings for the rest of the film. Stanwyck, Van Heflin, and the rest of the cast all do competent acting jobs. It's just that the script is so weak. Utter piffle!