NR | 1h 22min | Drama, Comedy | 1951
Middle-aged Stanley Banks (Spencer Tracy), having married off his beloved daughter, Kay (Elizabeth Taylor), to Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor), finally starts to savor life. With spring in the air, he figures he ought to steal some quiet time by himself or with his wife, Ellie (Joan Bennett). Suddenly, Kay announces she’s going to have a baby.
Delighted, Ellie hosts a stork shower. Devastated, Stanley fears that a baby in the home can mean only two things. First, his hard-earned money is about to be spent on things other than his dreams: holidaying, big-game hunting, fishing, and golfing. Second, he’s about to be relegated to playing grandpa, just when his remaining active years beckon.
But Stanley isn’t the only one struggling. Kay feels overwhelmed by the fuss over whether she’ll bring baby up with her parents or her in-laws, or in the new house that the newlyweds have planned.
Worse, there’s concern about whether it’ll be a boy or girl and about picking a name that’ll please everyone. Stanley shudders. He’s shrinking even more from his daughter’s life than when he gave her away in marriage. That’s not the worst of it. When Kay’s baby arrives, it looks like it’ll warm to anyone but him.
Director Vincente Minnelli and screenwriters Frances Goodrich. Edward Streeter, and Albert Hackett return to ensure there are no jarring notes in their sequel. Bennett, Tracy, and Taylor are as endearing as ever; only a year had passed since they’d performed together in the original.
Minnelli often allows Stanley’s voiceover to override what other characters are saying, amplifying his nostalgia as he looks adoringly at his wife, and later his daughter. It’s unclear how Minnelli got the baby to bawl and brighten on cue, but it looks and feels spontaneous, as if it all worked perfectly on the first take. Hilariously, when Stanley tries cozying up to those chubby cheeks that seem to welcome everyone else, it’s as if the frowning baby’s picking on him alone.
The brief stork shower scene heightens Stanley’s comical predicament. The shower serves as a playful reminder of a meaningful family tradition that cultivates gratitude for fertility, birth, renewal, growth, and the cyclical nature of life. It also instills a spirit of giving and abundance.
Grandfather Clause
Tracy’s expressive eyes and impish grin frequently break the fourth wall, implying some horror just past or to come that parents and grandparents in the audience can identify with. With the stubbornness of a grandfather clause, Stanley wants his previous perks to continue even under a new dispensation, to which he’ll make no more than a few concessions.Kay still values his counsel and shames him into being the warm, wise man she remembers, instead of the petty-minded grouch he’d rather be. Surprising himself, he pays her back in spades.
In one tender scene, as her due date approaches, Stanley wonders why Kay thinks Buckley’s as anxious as she is. It’s not because of the attention she’s getting or because he’s not getting his way. It’s because Buckley’s afraid for her. Stanley admits he can’t lie that it’ll be easy saying, “When the time comes, you mothers seem to have a courage and a strength you never knew you had.”
Masterfully, the screenwriters reflect that sentiment. The story goes from anxious women to anxious men, who graduate, often overnight, from being indulgent young husbands into caring young fathers.
The gags are enjoyable, if not laugh-out-loud funny. To Stanley, a stork shower is a kind of highway robbery “not punishable by law.”
Watch a startled Ellie, as Stanley broods, “Babies cost money. The older they get, the more they cost!” She shushes him. Grandparenting, she smiles, is like garnering a dividend, accruing to you without you having to lift a finger, “All you have to do is love.”
When Kay goes missing, Buckley pleads with Stanley, “If anything happens to her, I’ll kill myself.” Furious, Stanley reassures him, “Don’t worry, I’ll do it for you!”
Stanley fears that everything he’s hoarding—money, time—will be lost when things change. In the original film, change is about Kay leaving home to marry; here, it’s about her returning, baby in tow.
Minnelli’s saying, with a wink and a smile, that we love even those we know we’re going to lose someday because love’s about giving. The getting is a bonus. Love is its own dividend.
