The Bachelor Father

90 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglish

The Bachelor Father is a 1931 American pre-Code MGM comedy drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Marion Davies and featuring Ralph Forbes, C. Aubrey Smith, Ray Milland and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams.^[1] It was based on a same-titled play by Edward Childs Carpenter, with Smith re-creating his role from the Broadway production. The plot centers around a stuffy British nobleman whose three grown (and illegitimate) children suddenly arrive at his estate and decide to move in with him.

Plot

Sir Basil Algernon Winterton is an elderly, never-married baronet who decides to bring together his three illegitimate children, scattered around the world, on a whim. He assigns his young friend John Ashley the task. Antoinette "Toni" Flagg is an American showgirl whose mother died when she was young. She was raised by Mrs. Berney.

Toni decides to go to England. Once there, she meets her brother and sister, and together they meet their father for the first time. They mistake him for a fish monger (as he is returning from fishing), making a bad first impression. While initially he bristles at their behaviour, with Toni especially grating his patience, he soon comes to love them all. One day however, Toni discovers that it was actually her half-sister, 20 years deceased, who is Sir Basil's daughter, and she is no relation to him. While she tries to tell Sir Basil, his love for her (and hers in return) prevent her from doing so, but when it eventually comes out, he suspects her of betraying him and sends her away.

Heartbroken, Toni tries to leave London by joining a risky trans-Atlantic flight back to New York. Hearing this, Sir Basil realizes how much he cares for Toni and tries to stop her before it is too late.

Cast (in credits order)

• Marion Davies as Antoinette Flagg
• Ralph Forbes as John Ashley
• C. Aubrey Smith as Sir Basil Algernon Winterton
• Ray Milland as Geoffrey Trent
• Guinn "Big Boy" Williams as Richard Berney
• David Torrence as Dr Frank MacDonald
• Doris Lloyd as Mrs Julia Webb
• Edgar Norton as Bolton, The Second Butler
• Nina Quartero as Maria Credaro
• Halliwell Hobbes as Larkin, The Butler
• James Gordon as Carson Creswell, a lawyer

Foreign-language version

One foreign-language version was produced by MGM in French and was entitled Le père célibataire. It was released in 1931 and starred Lili Damita.^{[citation needed]}

References

External links

• The Bachelor Father at IMDb
• The Bachelor Father at AllMovie
• The Bachelor Father at the TCM Movie Database
• The Bachelor Father at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films