I Remember Mama (1948)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Norwegian immigrant Marta Hanson keeps a firm but loving hand on her household of four children, a devoted husband and a highly - educated lodger who reads Charles Dickens to the family every evening. Through financial crises, illnesses and the small triumphs of everyday life, Marta maintains her optimism and sense of humour, traits she passes on to her aspiring - author daughter, Katrin.
- Actors:
- Irene Dunne, Barbara Bel Geddes, Oskar Homolka, Philip Dorn, Cedric Hardwicke, Edgar Bergen, Rudy Vallee, Barbara O'Neil, Florence Bates, Peggy McIntyre, June Hedin, Steve Brown, Ellen Corby, Hope Landin, Edith Evanson, Tommy Ivo, Stanley Andrews, George Atkinson, Lela Bliss, Louise Colombet
- Directors:
- George Stevens
- Writers:
- DeWitt Bodeen, John Van Druten
- Others:
- Oscar Homolka, Nicholas Musuraca
- Genres:
- Children & Family, Classics, Drama
- Collections:
- Cinema's Most Memorable Comedy Double Acts
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Reviews (1) of I Remember Mama
Memory Film. - I Remember Mama review by Steve
Sentimental, nostalgic account of the immigrant experience in early century San Francisco from the perspective of an extended family of Norwegian settlers. It particularly focuses on their heroic matriarch played irresistibly by Irene Dunne.
The film doesn't touch on the negative experiences of many expatriates. There is no indication of prejudice or sectarianism and little of ghettoisation. The family is working class, and frugal. The main ritual of their week is their sharing out of the father's wage. Not much is left after the rent. But they are not poor.
There are no major dramatic events but the film is tremendously moving, thanks to Mama's pragmatism and selflessness and her determination to survive in the new country. We really believe in their struggle and their unbreakable domestic bonds. They are relentlessly thrifty. There's a hilarious scene where the uncle (Oscar Homolka) finishes off a bottle of whisky on his death bed because no one else drinks alcohol and it would be wasted!
The film is beautifully photographed by Nicholas Musuraca and scored by Roy Webb. It is so artfully directed by George Stevens that it counteracts the manifest sweetness of the narrative. Sure, it's idealised, but so often memories are, and the film is framed as the daughter (Barbara Bel Geddes) remembering the early life that led to her career as a writer. It has similarities with Little Women, but I think is better realised than any screen version of that story.