Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Never Say Goodbye

The opening moments of James V. Kern's Never Say Goodbye shows Ellen (Eleanor Parker) and Phil Gayley (Errol Flynn) both separately buying a coat for their daughter Flip (Patti Brady). She buys a modest coat for Flip while he gets a flashier one. This establishes who the two of them are as parents.

Oh, and it's worth mentioning that Ellen and Phil are divorced. (The reason as to why their marriage ended isn't specified though Phil's wandering eye might have something to do with it.) As part of their settlement, Flip lives with Phil for half of the year and then with Ellen for the other half. This isn't an ideal situation for Flip so she tries to get her parents back together. But will she succeed?

By this point in Flynn's career, his film union with Olivia de Havilland had ended five years earlier, he tried to expand his screen image (with varying success), and then there were his legal woes. Obviously, he needed some serious PR, and Never Say Goodbye certainly helped a bit. (Was there anyone who oozed more charm than Flynn? Probably not.)

Something that's brought up throughout Never Say Goodbye is the effects of divorce on a child. Ellen mentions that Flip needs to accept that her parents will never get back together, obviously not taking into account how shuffling from household to household isn't the best scenario for her young daughter. (Bear in mind this was released the same year Benjamin Spock made a name for himself in similar matters.)

Never Say Goodbye is predictable in spots but as Flynn showed previously with Four's a Crowd, he was just adept at comedy as he was with swashbuckler pictures. (Parker, in turn, serves as a sort of straight woman to the film's antics.) It's not the usual fare for its leads but they're enjoyable nonetheless.

My Rating: ****

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are appreciated. More so if they are appropriate.