Penny Serenade

Julie Gardner Adams (Dunne) is heartbroken.  As she prepares to start over, she begins to reminisce.  Years before, she was working in a music store and meets newspaper report Roger Adams (Grant).  She longs to to be a mother, but Roger is a confirmed bachelor with no interest in children.

The newspaper is sending Roger to Japan, and he proposes to Julie.  They marry quickly and move to Japan.  Julie is overjoyed to learn that she is pregnant, but that joy is overshadowed by money worries.  Then she loses the baby during an earthquake.

They return to America where Roger buys a newspaper.  He hires his closest friend Applejack Carney (Buchanan) to manage the paper.  They move into the apartment above the paper and try to move on with their lives.  Applejack suggests adoption and they begin working with Miss Oliver (Bondi) to make their dream a reality.  Can they find a way to have it all: great marriage, successful business, and a child?


The film is an emotional tear-jerker.  The emotion is present from the beginning and is amplified by the music choices.  The performances keep the film grounded, even as it threatens to veer into sappy territory.

Irene Dunne is great here.  She has phenomenal chemistry with Cary Grant, who is also great here.  This is the third and final film collaboration between Grant and Dunne, following The Awful Truth (1937) and My Favorite Wife (1940).  Edgar Buchanan is also good as Applejack, and I love his interaction with Jane Biffle and Eva Lee Kuney.  Jane Biffle, credited as Baby Biffle, is an infant... and adorable.  Eva Lee Kuney is precious and you will fall in love with her immediately.  And Beulah Bondi is wonderful as Miss Oliver.

The film was adapted to a radio play in 1941, 1942, 1944, and 1953.  Dunne reprised her role in several of the adaptations.

Watch this movie if you like the cast and a good cry.

Penny Serenade (1941) 119 minutes
Director: George Stevens
Starring: Irene Dunne as Julie Gardner Adams
Cary Grant as Roger Adams
Beulah Bondi as Miss Oliver
Edgar Buchanan as Applejack Carney
Ann Doran as Dotty