jfarms1956 Father Is A Bachelor is a movie best appreciated by the baby boomer generation and by those who love the old black and white sappy type movies. The opening song creates the mood for the entire movie. William Holden is okay. I am used to see him in more challenging roles and doing a great job. The movie has a slightly different romantic twist about it though. This is a good movie for those late night insomniacs or the rainy day afternoon crowd. The movie has a slow pace so for those late night watchers, you might want to drink some coffee or other caffeinated beverage to stay awake to finish the movie. I give the movie two thumbs up.

mark.waltz Some people might think that William Holden was a bit miscast in this light-hearted comedy that doesn't feature laughs as much as smiles. This was before his rise from respectable actor with only two classics at that time ("Golden Boy" and "Our Town") under his belt. But with two of 1950's top rated films ("Born Yesterday" and "Sunset Boulevard") just down the road, he would be ranked a lot higher than he was throughout the 40's.The film's simple story is of a traveling medicine man (Charles Winninger) who ends up in jail for fraud, while his minstrel man (Holden) comes across five orphaned children and reluctantly takes on the job of being their papa. At first, he only breaks bread with them to get some greens to eat with the fish he has caught, but soon, is taken in by the sweet Mary Jane Saunders, the youngest of the children, all named after the first five months of the year. A concerned citizen (Colleen Gray) looks in on them and believes Holden to be their uncle. When Holden is forced to remain around after beating up a nasty local who insulted the children, he finds he has no choice to continue the facade. The town's shady lawyer (Clinton Sundberg) blackmails him into becoming engaged to one of his spinster sisters, but its obvious that the kids won't have anybody else but the lovely Ms. Gray for their newly found "uncle".There is nothing to criticize about this film other than its formulatic and predictable plot. The children aren't all sappy, and the songs are pleasant, if unremarkable. Everything is resolved nicely, something a growing cynical audience in 1950 wanted. Holden and Gray are a nice team, and Saunders is adorable without being an imitation of Shirley Temple or Margaret O"Brien. It won't win any awards, but that also means it won't be on any worst list either.

bkoganbing Father Is A Bachelor marked the end of what William Holden termed his 'Smiling Jim' roles. His next film would be for Paramount and would be Sunset Boulevard which forever changed his screen image. This film was done for his other studio master, Columbia.When it was decided that Columbia would have next call on his services for Father Is A Bachelor, Holden must have brought over the script from Paramount because if there ever was a Bing Crosby picture that Bing didn't do, this was it. This actually might have been a classic had Crosby done this over at Paramount.Bill Holden for the one and only time in a film sang although not with his voice. The voice of Buddy Clark who was one of the great radio singers back in the day and rival of Bing Crosby was the voice that Holden used. Holden/Clark sang about eight numbers all public domain stuff. Had it been done at Paramount Burke-Van Heusen or Livingston- Evans would have done an original score for Crosby.Buddy Clark was heard posthumously coming out of Bill Holden's mouth. He was killed in a private plane crash in the fall of 1949. Clark was also the singing voice of Jack Haley in Wake Up And Live and he had one of the most pleasant voices to listen to ever.The story has Holden singing in black-face the opening number in a medicine show run by Charles Winninger. One of the crowd recognizes Winninger as a guy who bilked a few customers a time or two before. Though the black-face is demeaning to black people it actually serves a purpose in the plot because after Holden has wiped off the burnt cork, no one recognizes him and he's free while Winninger is in the slam.But he doesn't stay free for long because the free and easy Holden gets involved with a family of five orphans who are trying to stay together and avoid an orphanage or being divided up with several families.Coleen Gray is Holden's love interest in this film, she's the daughter of Lloyd Corrigan the judge who Winninger is before. Stu Erwin is the sheriff and the orphans are Gary Gray, Billy Gray, Wayne Farlow, Warren Farlow, and Mary Jane Saunders. Sig Ruman has a nice part as the owner of a beer garden who employs Holden as a singing waiter. The biggest crisis in the film comes from the closest thing to a villain in the piece, sleazy lawyer Clinton Sundberg. He finds out that Holden is really no kin to those kids and he offers him a choice, marry one of old maid sisters either Peggy Converse or Lillian Bronson, either one doesn't make any difference to him. It's quite a pickle Holden's got himself in.Father Is A Bachelor is a nice family entertainment film, but it was also the kind of film Holden was trying to get out of doing and succeeded magnificently in his next work. Besides though Holden was good, he certainly was poaching on the territory of Der Bingle.

Gemini730 I`m a huge William Holden fan and I enjoyed this film very much.I like the nostalgic American mid-west turn of the century time setting of the film.Bill Holden has great interaction with the children-his true gentle sweetness when singing "In The Gloaming" as a lullabye to the little girl shines through.The scene with Bill trying to sew the little girl a dress from a pattern is hysterical.Buddy Clark did a wonderful job of dubbing his voice to match Bill Holden`s-if I didn`t know better,I would swear it was Bill singing. A nice family film with great sentimental, turn of the century songs with a wonderful, funny, sweet performance from Bill Holden.Its a shame Columbia has never released this on video or DVD.I obtained my copy from a private collector.