The Mad Martindales (1942) User Reviews

Madcap Jane Withers

[drednm · 16 October 2016]

Funny film (it gets funnier as it goes along) stars Jane Withers as the younger daughter of a dippy architect (Alan Mowbray) in early 1900s San Francisco. He dreams about building a "bungalow development" but never spends much time on it since he's always off impulsively buying objets d'art.

Withers plays the sensible one who has to deal with unpaid servants, bill collectors, a next-door boyfriend (Jimmy Lydon), and her older sister (Marjorie Weaver) and her suitors. At one point see sells off all the furniture in the house to a Chinese pawnbroker to pay the mortgage. Next up she disguises herself as her sister to woo a rich man (Gig Young) only to get deeper into trouble. Everything comes together in the end, but there's still a surprise ending.

Withers was 16 here and is quite funny. Mowbray and Lydon are also quite good. Also in the cast are Kathleen Howard as the crabby granny, Steven Geray as the investor, George Reeves as an Italian suitor, Charles Lane as the bill collector, Robert Greig and Emma Dunn as the servants, Victor Sen Yung as the young pawnbroker, and silent star Charles Ray as a barbershop patron.

Gig Young is billed as Byron Barr, his real name.

Life With Daughter.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 24 August 2018]

Welcome to San Francisco, pre-earthquake, 1900. Financial issues have a formerly successful architect (Alan Mowbray) in legal trouble, being harassed by loan companies and threatened with foreclosure on his house and estate if he doesn't come up with $10,000. His daughters Marjorie Reynolds and Jane Withers are having typical young romantic issues, but when pop's problems come to light, it is Withers who tries to come to the rescue, pretending to be the girlfriend of Weaver's supposed boyfriend (a very young Gig Young!) so she can get his wealthy grandmother (the delightful Kathleen Howard) to loan them the money. In the meantime, Withers is chased by pesky next door neighbor Jimmy Lydon who has a crush on Withers, whom he has been working with on high school projects. How does "Little Miss Fix-It" deal with all these issues, especially when she begins to have a crush on Young, unaware that Weaver has been seeing other men?

Nearing the end of nearly a decade long run at 20th Century Fox (starting back when it was just Fox Studios), the irrepressible Jane Withers does all she can to move from awkward pre-teen to potential leading lady, looking rather glamorous in period costumes. Unlike her former rival, Shirley Temple, there was never an effort to be overly cutesy and lovable; Withers was just what you saw her to be on screen. Jimmy Lydon, on a break from his long run as Henry Aldrich, adorably swoons over Withers who finds him to be a nice companion but nothing more than just a buddy, so when Young kisses her out of nowhere (simply to impress grandma Howard), the sparks Withers feels are believable. Mowbray is funny casting as the family patriarch, just as droll and seemingly snobbish and uppity in spite of his financial situation. In his two scenes as the loan company collection agent, Charles Lane gets some very funny lines and for ones rare insights into his character. But it is Withers and Howard who come out of this stealing their every moment onscreen, quite amusing even more when the two are together. It's a typical feel good war time programmer, not bad, not great, yet somehow I never believed the Martindales to seem real as a family, only actors cast as one.