I Remember Mama

Directed by George Stevens (1948)

“Be quiet, Jessie!” says Mama (Irene Dunne) to her Viking battle-ax of a sister. “Maybe you don’t have things to do, I have!” What does she have to do, her husband asks? “I have to chloroform a cat.”

Mama, it seems, can do anything. Her littlest daughter loves animals, and her cat has been very sick. So Mama has got a job she doesn’t want, which is to put the cat quietly to sleep, but — but you have to see the film to find out!

Some films, I say, are absolutely flawless — no false step in the direction, no trace of over-acting, no note in the script that does not ring true. And when you couple that with a story that is deeply human, with plenty of comedy, but notes of possible tragedy nearby, threatened by the common human ills of pride, prejudice, hardness of heart, and envy, but founded and built up at last by the less common virtues of unshakable love, self-denial, wisdom, humility, and — especially — gratitude, you have the makings of a masterpiece. And that’s what George Stevens’ film, I Remember Mama, is — a masterpiece, and without a trace of self-consciousness about it.

The setting of our Film of the Week is this: an immigrant family from Norway, the Hansons, has settled in San Francisco, around 1910. It’s not just Mama and Papa (Philip Dorn) and their boy and three girls. It’s a small clan, all living in San Francisco or in the country nearby. It’s Mama’s three sisters, the bossy Jenny (pronounce it Yenny), the querulous Jessie (Yessie), and the skinny little Trina (Ellen Corby, whom you’ll remember as Grandma in The Waltons). And it’s the head of the clan, Uncle Chris (Oskar Homolka, who plays the role to the hilt), beetle-browed, hard-drinking, salty-tongued, and scary until you get to know him a little.

“You mean you don’t like the aunts?” he says to the eldest girl, Katrin (Barbara BelGeddes). She hesitates a little, embarrassed, and looks to her sister, and then says, honestly, “Not really, Uncle Chris.” “Ah ha!” he chortles, breaking into a mischievous grin. “I don’t like them either! Which one,” he says, getting downright conspiratorial, “don’t you like the most, eh?”

They are poor, the Hansons, always just scraping by. “We don’t have to go to the bank,” says Mama, after one unexpected expense after another; it’s a theme throughout the film. And they don’t get much help from other people. They’ve taken in a boarder, Mr. Hyde (Cedric Hardwicke), who reads literature to them in the evening, much to the benefit of Katrin, as she will catch the love of it and want to become a writer. Will Mr. Hyde pay his rent? The blustery Aunt Jenny doesn’t think so. But the Hansons are intelligent, they work hard, and they love one another — at least they do so most of the time; and they are held together by the central person in the household, Mama. The film is told as Katrin’s reminiscence, because she has learned to write about what she knows and loves best.

The acting in the movie is superb, all the way round. Irene Dunne, one of three actresses out of my top ten who never won an Oscar (Barbara Stanwyck and Deborah Kerr are the others), is brilliant. She practiced the Norwegian accent constantly, for months, at all hours of the day, and you will think she could go to Trondheim and order herring from a fish market like everybody else. You will be led to love Mama as much as the daughter does! She was nominated for an Oscar, but it was a really tough year for leading actresses: her chief rivals were Olivia De Havilland (The Heiress) and the winner, Jane Wyman (who played a mute woman in Johnny Belinda). I’ve mentioned Oskar Homolka and Barbara BelGeddes, but you’ll also have Rudy Vallee as a no-nonsense doctor, and Edgar Bergen as the scared-rabbit suitor for Aunt Trina, Florence Bates as a hefty lady novelist who loves good Norwegian cooking, and, of course, Cedric Hardwicke.

This is a movie to watch again and again. If you’ve never seen it before, be ready for laughter, and a lump or two in the throat.

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Word & Song by Anthony Esolen is an online magazine devoted to reclaiming the good, the beautiful, and the true. We publish six essays each week, on words, classic hymn, poems, films, and popular songs, as well a weekly podcast, alternately Poetry Aloud or Anthony Esolen Speaks. To support this project, please join us as a free or paid subscriber. Learn more about our subscription tiers by clicking the button below.