The Happy Time (1952)

★ 6.3 1h 34m IMDb
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A violinist and his brother guide one's son through his crush on the family maid in 1920s Ottawa.

The Happy Time

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Cast

Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer as Jacques Bonnard Died 1978 · Figeac, Lot, Midi-Pyrénées, France Charles Boyer (28 August 1899 – 26 August 1978) was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he f...
Louis Jourdan
Louis Jourdan as Uncle Desmond Bonnard Died 2015 · Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France Louis Jourdan (born Louis Robert Gendre; 19 June 1921 – 14 February 2015) was a French film and television actor. He was known for his suave roles in several Hollywood films, including Alfred Hitchcoc...
Marsha Hunt
Marsha Hunt as Susan Bonnard Died 2022 · Chicago, Illinois, USA Marsha Hunt (born Marcia Virginia Hunt; October 17, 1917 – September 7, 2022) was an American actress, model and activist, with a career spanning nearly 80 years. She was blacklisted by Hollywood film...
Bobby Driscoll
Bobby Driscoll as Robert 'Bibi' Bonnard Died 1968 · Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA Bobby Driscoll was an American child and young-adult actor whose substantial career included work on the screen, television, stage, and radio. The 1949 films So Dear to My Heart and The Window earned...
Linda Christian
Linda Christian as Mignonette Chappuis Died 2011 · Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico Linda Christian (born November 13, 1923) is a Mexican movie actress, who filmed films in Mexican cinema and in Hollywood, her career reached its peak in the 1940s and 1950s. She played Mara in the las...
Kurt Kasznar
Kurt Kasznar as Uncle Louis Bonnard Died 1979 · Wien, Austria Kurt Kasznar (August 12, 1913 – August 6, 1979) was a stage, film, and television actor.Kasznar's first major Broadway appearance was in The Happy Time. (He recreated his role for the film version and...

Audience Reviews

CinemaSerf 7/10 Dec 08, 2024
Aside from "Treasure Island" (1950) this might be my favourite film featuring the charming Bobby Driscoll. He's the teenage "Robert/Bibi" who is completely oblivious to the affections of his next door neighbour because he only has eyes for the new maid "Mignonette" (Linda Christian). His obsessiveness starts to affect his schoolwork, and when the lovelorn "Peggy" (Marlene Cameron) doctors a rather risqué copy of "Paris Match" and gets him into hot water, things get so serious as to require the intervention of his dad (Charles Boyer) and two uncles (Louis Jourdan and Kurt Kasznar). They question him about the naughty photos and respect his denial whilst also clocking really quite quickly just what is troubling their young charge. Boyer is also on good form here, and I thought Richard Fleischer's amiable direction allowed the deftly adapted script to tell us a story of pubescent love mixed with familial concern and affection and peppered with some lovely, quite witty, observational humour. Driscoll was seventeen or so when he made this, so he probably had some genuine hormones to add to this genuinely quite enjoyable comedic drama. Don't be put off by the rather ropey title track, it's really quite good fun, this.

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