Father Is a Bachelor

After his medicine show runs afoul of the local law, a drifter (William Holden) winds up caring for a group of orphaned children.

Father Is a Bachelor is notable for four things. First, the film opens with William Holden in blackface lip-synching a tune with Dooley Wilson (of Casablanca fame) accompanying him, second, it marks the first, and only musical of Holden’s career (thankfully), third, it was written by James Edward Grant, who wrote a good number of John Wayne’s scripts, and finally, the predominantly child cast isn’t half bad.

While seeing Holden in blackface is certainly a shock (and likely what keeps the film from being released on home video), it’s the young cast that’s ultimately most surprising. Gary Gray, who just two years earlier over-emoted terribly in Rachel and the Stranger comes across just fine here. Ditto Mary Jane Saunders who manages to be cute without being cloying.

Indeed, what undoes Father Is a Bachelor is not the child actors, but rather the filmmaker’s insistence on having Holden break out into song at various intervals. Given that he’s not a singer, why cast him in a role that clearly called for one? This would have been a much better vehicle for Frank Sinatra, whose career was waning about this point before his resurgence with From Here to Eternity.

That said, this isn’t a bad movie. At 83 minutes, it goes by pretty easy, but it’s nothing you’ll need, or want, to see again.