I Remember Mama (1948)

Film adapted from the play, adapted from the fictionalized memoir by Kathryn Forbes (it also later became a successful early television series). The story focuses on the Hanson family, an ideal, loving family of two Norwegian immigrants and their four children living in San Francisco circa 1910. Sweet family drama, very much in the same school as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The 'Mama' ,Marta Hanson (played by Irene Dunne) is a perfect archetype of the dedicated mother, that is not to say she is with out character, she has one, and its not all stock, I can see her as a real person. The plot is a lose one, really just a series of events in the life of the Hanson family over roughly a four to six year period. There is the death of an eccentric uncle (Oskar Homolka in a scene stealing role), the hospitalization of the youngest girl, and various concerns over school, career and status, family life stuff. It is a thoroughly pleasant and endearing work, fittingly loved by many. ****