The Late George Apley *** (1947, Ronald Colman, Edna Best, Vanessa Brown, Richard Haydn, Peggy Cummins) – Classic Movie Review 11,982

Peggy Cummins.

Joseph L Mankiewicz’s 1947 comedy romance film The Late George Apley stars Ronald Colman, Edna Best and Peggy Cummins, and is based on John P Marquand’s hit novel and play.

Director Joseph L Mankiewicz’s 1947 American comedy romance film The Late George Apley stars Ronald Colman, Edna Best, Vanessa Brown, Richard Haydn and Peggy Cummins.

A posh New England family is the target of this deft comment on the foibles of the wealthy in 1912, taken from John P Marquand’s 1937 sweetly acerbic satirical novel and his subsequent Broadway play written with George S Kaufman.

Mankiewicz makes it slip down with ease with the help of a sleekly crafted screenplay by Philip Dunne.

The cast are super-slick and thoroughly entertaining, especially Colman in a tailor-made role as the family head, the stuffy, self-satisfied upper-class Bostonian George Apley, who is confronted with a changing world. Both his son (Richard Ney) and his daughter (Peggy Cummins) have fallen in love with non-Bostonians.

Also in the cast are Charles Russell, Richard Ney, Percy Waram, Mildred Natwick, Nydia Westman, Francis Pierlot, Ottola Nesmith, William F Moran, Mae Marsh, Therese Lyon, Kathleen Howard, Paul Harvey, Helen Freeman, Diana Douglas, Cordelia Campbell, Clifford Brooke, and David Bond.

[Spoiler alert] George Apley does not die in the film, making nonsense of the title, though he does in the book and play.

Ernst Lubitsch directed additional scenes after Mankiewicz left.

The book won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1938 and was acclaimed the first serious work by Marquand, best known for his Mr Moto spy novels.

Percy Waram, playing George’s brother-in-law, is the only member of the original Broadway cast to re-create his role on screen.

20th Century Fox bought the rights to the play for $275,000.

The New York City street scenes were filmed on the Warner Bros lot in Burbank, California.

It was shot in 1946 but not released till 20 March 1947.

The song ‘Sweet Little Marigold,’ sung by Agnes Willing (Vanessa Brown) at the Thanksgiving dinner party, is missing from the TV print on Turner Classic Movies, perhaps because of legal issues over the music rights.