Unemployed Polly Parrish (Ginger Rogers) impulsively picks up a baby left at orphanage doors at Christmas. Everyone assumes the foundling is hers, including Polly’s playboy ex-boss (David Niven), who offers her a job if she’ll live up to her maternal duties. A paycheck would be handy, so Polly complies. Then the boss’s tycoon dad (Charles Coburn) assumes the infant is his secret grandson…and things really spin out of control. Buoyed by Rogers’ irresistibly endearing performance, Bachelor Mother is one of those rarities, a brilliantly cast comedy where everything – plot, pacing and dialogue (thanks to Garson Kanin’s savvy direction and Norman Krasna’s witty script) – is exactly, hilariously right. Set during the Christmas – New Year season.
Ginger plays Polly Parrish, temporary Christmas help at Merlin & Son’s department store. Charles Coburn is J. B. Merlin and David Niven is his footloose son David. Ginger is given her pink slip along with the other Christmas help and upon leaving the store comes across an old woman leaving a small baby on the steps of an orphanage. Ginger of course picks the baby up as the door opens and from here on in everyone assumes it’s hers!
One of the season’s gayest shows….the players are capital. Miss Rogers is demonstrating again that she is one of the screen’s most knowing comediennes. Mr. Niven, as her perplexed overseer and baby-feeding adviser; Charles Coburn as the pontifical grandfather (by adoption); Ernest Truex as the man from the foundling home; Frank Albertson as the fellow employe and Ferike Boros as the landlady—all are perfect in their way. So out of the nowhere, like Polly’s baby, a merry comedy has come tripping, all new and brightly shining and full of the most unexpected nonsense. -New York Times
A true classic. I have watched this movie every year around the holidays since I can remember. It is innocent enough for children yet entertaining for adults. – Amazon reviewer
Starring Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn.
Note: This 1930s film was remade as a musical in the [Bundle Of Joy (1956)](http://amzn.to/1OYVxGF): When Bundle of Joy premiered in 1956, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher were the cutest young marrieds in Hollywood, the obvious choice to headline the musical remake of one of the great comedies of the ’30s, Bachelor Mother. As the Prince Charming of the piece, Fisher proves that as an actor, he is a pretty good crooner. But Reynolds is warmly appealing in the role originated by Ginger Rogers, playing a salesgirl who picks up a foundling, is mistaken for its unwed mother and must keep up the charade – baby and all – to keep her job.