I REMEMBER MAMA

US, 1948, 134 minutes, Black and white.
Irene Dunne, Barbara Bel Geddes, Oskar Homolka, Philip Dorn, Cedric Hardwicke, Rudy Vallee, Edgar Bergen, Florence Bates, Ellen Corby
Directed by George Stevens.

I Remember Mama is one of those all-American stories so popular in the 1930s and 1940s. It recounts the memoirs of a Norwegian mama who was the backbone of her family when they migrated from Norway to San Francisco in the early 1900s. The film is narrated by one of the daughters, played by Barbara Bel Geddes, and introduces the various characters in the family, their relationships, the hardships they endured, the encouragement from their mother, their growing prosperity and settling into the United States as American-born.

Irene Dunne had been a very strong star of the 1930s (Showboat, Magnificent Obsession). In this same year she also appeared in a similar kind of film with William Powell, Life With Father. She received an Oscar nomination for this performance. In fact, the film received several Oscar nominations for performance. They include Oskar Homolka, Barbara Bel Geddes and Ellen Corby (who actually won a Golden Globe).

The film was directed by George Stevens who had directed Irene Dunne with Cary Grant in Penny Serenade. Once again, he had been a classic director of the 1930s and made a number of significant films: Quality Street, Gunga Din, Woman of the Year, The Talk of the Town. In the 1950s he had an even more successful decade starting with an Oscar for A Place in the Sun, best director, and another with Giant in 1956. He also directed Shane and The Diary of Anne Frank.

The film was based on a play by John Van Druten (I Am a Camera, The Voice of the Turtle). The film can now be looked at with a nostalgia for the America of the first half of the 20th century.

1. Why was this film so appealing? To whom would it best appeal? Why?

2. How successful was the structure, the reminiscences of Catherine, her appearance in the film and her commenting?

3. How important was the theme of heritage for this film? The role of the past and its influence on the present? Respect and reverence for the past? How important?

4. What did the film have to say about Norway and its migrants? Their place in the United States? Their ease of assimilation? The difficulties they found? The influence they had in later generations? How important to communicate this?

5. How important was the Norwegian background for the family? In terms of language, customs? Which incidents best illustrated this?

6. How strong was the presentation of a family in the film? The bonds between the relations? The influence of the bonds in all the facets of life? The ethos of the family? What insight into family relations did the film give? The nature of love, spite, devotion, ambitions, difficulties?

7. How striking a character was Mama? Why? The dignity of Irene Dunne's performance? What kind of a woman was she in her attitudes and behaviour? Her attitude towards marriage, illness, money, work, death, her daughter, career, the ordinary things of daily life? Her attitude towards the other members of the family? Her tolerance and understanding? Did love add to her determination? How admirable a character was she? Which incidents best illustrated this?

8. How strong a character was Papa? How did he compare with Mama? What were his best qualities? In his relationship with his children and wife, especially?

9. How likeable were the children? Were they typical? How were they best understood in their environment? their difficulties and their yearnings? the relationship between Christine and Katrina? the jealousy? Nils and his ambitions? Dagmar, her attitudes and her love for the cat?

10. The role of the aunt? As a distraction from the main characters? A type of comic relief? And yet the fact that they were strongly criticised? their bossiness and whining? Mama made a victim of the others? What did this illustrate about human behaviour, family relationships, pressures? External morality and respectability? their changing of attitudes, especially in regards to Joanne?


11. The importance of Uncle Chris as the family patriarch? His overbearing attitude? The likeable aspects of his character? His attacks on

hypocrisy? How important was his sequence of caring for children? The importance of the sequence of his death? How moving was this? In the way it was written and filmed?

12. What did the incidents concerning Trina and her fiancee, Mr Hyde, his reading and then his not paying the rent? Dagmar and her illness, death, the graduation preparations and the gift? What did these add to the meaning of the film and its impact?

13. How important were the clothes of their lives? Small things and yet big for the family? the insight of this into human nature?

14. How important a character was Katrina? the fact that her family life had influenced her? Her memories and their communication? The formative value of the family and Mama on her? As summarised in the incidents about her stories and Mama's intervention?

15. What was the principal value of the film? Do these values and attitudes stand decades after the film was made? Why?