This is a guest post written by Allison Foster.
This classic black and white film stars Ginger Rodgers and David Niven in something that was a bit risqué for the times. The story is about a single young woman, Polly, who works in a department store for the holidays. The day before Christmas she gets a pink slip and is depressed because she does not know where she will get a new job. Walking home she sees a woman drop off a baby on the steps of an orphanage. Afraid the baby will fall down the stairs Polly runs up to pick it up just as the person who runs the orphanage opens the door. She tells him the baby is not hers but he does not believe her. She leaves the baby with him and runs away but he tracks down where she works. When he finds out she lost her job he goes up to talk to the owner of the department store. Instead of the owner he runs into the owner’s playboy son, David, who decides he is going to help her out. David gives Polly back her job and they drop the baby off with her, telling her that if she tries to drop it off again she will be arrested for abandoning it.
Frustrated, Polly decides she will raise the baby. David starts to check up on her at the store and even comes up to her apartment with toys and books for the baby. Eventually he starts to fall in love with her but does not want to marry her because he does not want a family. However a co-worker of Polly’s gets jealous of the attention she is getting and tells David’s father, the store owner, that the baby is his grandchild. The father threatens to take the baby from Polly if David does not marry her. Polly runs away with the baby because she wants to keep it. As David and his father search for her David realizes he loves her and the baby. They find her and David asks her to marry him. She agrees, even though he still does not believe the baby is not hers.
I loved the last few lines of this movie. Polly asks David, “You want to marry me, even though you still think the baby is mine?” “Yes,” he says. “Well, are you in for a surprise! Haha!” she laughs, knowing he will find out she is a virgin once they are married.
The thing that I loved best about this movie though is how supportive everyone was of Polly. I had not expected that era to be a supportive of a single mother as they would be now. However everyone except the owner of the company was very loving towards Polly. The landlady helped to watch the baby during the day, David gave her toys and supplies and tried to help her raise it, and even the people at the orphanage did everything they could to keep mother and child together. All in all, it was a surprisingly enlightened movie for that era.
Author Byline:
Allison once she graduated from college, as it allowed her to combine her two passions: writing and children. She has enjoyed furthering her writing career with www.nannyclassifieds.com . She can be in touch through e-mail allisonDOTnannyclassifiedsATgmail rest you know.