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On Borrowed Time (1939) Lionel Barrymore avi

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On Borrowed Time (1939)

On Borrowed Time is a 1939 film about the role death plays in life, and how humanity cannot live without it. It is adapted from Paul Osborns 1938 Broadway hit play. The play, based on a novel by Lawrence Edward Watkin, has been revived twice on Broadway since its original run. Death takes human form and comes to Earth looking to take an old man (Lionel Barrymore) into the afterlife. However, Barrymore is caring for his orphaned grandson with an uncertain future, so he refuses to acquiesce. The cagey codger tricks the Grim Reaper into climbing an apple tree and traps him there to buy more time, but this only leads to other problems. Cedric Hardwicke, Bobs Watson, and Beulah Bondi co-star in this whimsical fantasy. 99 min.

Set in small-town America, the film stars Lionel Barrymore, Beulah Bondi and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Barrymore plays Julian Northrup, a wheelchair user (Barrymore had broken his hip twice previously and was now using a wheelchair, though he continued to act), who, with his wife Nellie, played by Bondi, are raising their orphaned grandson, Pud.


Synopsis

Death, personified in the form of Mr. Brink, hitches a ride with Dr. James Northrup and his wife, causing their tragic death in a car accident. This leaves their young son Pud in the care of his beloved grandfather, Julian Northrup, and his grandmother Nellie. Puds maternal aunt, Demetria Riffle, a sanctimonious, greedy old maid, pretends to be fond of the boy, but really cares nothing for him and only wants his $50,000 inheritance. Gramps, who calls Demetria a pismire, knows her true nature. Nellie too is aware of her niece Demetrias tendencies, but after Mr. Brink visits the ailing Nellie, Demetria plots to get Pud away from Gramps. When Mr. Brink visits Gramps, Gramps resists, luring him into his apple tree, and refusing to give him permission to leave. Mr. Brink is unable to come down from the tree, because only Gramps has the power to release him, the result of a wish he made after doing a good deed. After the beloved family dog dies upon touching the tree, Gramps orders a fence built round the tree to protect others and Demetria tries to have Grampss lawyer, Ben Pilbeam, and Dr. Evans declare him insane. Soon, however, Dr. Evans suspects that there is truth to Grampss insistence that Death is trapped in his apple tree when several cases of certain death do not occur. Evans conducts experiments to disprove Grampss story, but nothing dies, except a mouse that touches the apple tree. Evans begs Gramps to let Brink down, and appeals to his humanity. He tells him that a world without death will mean added suffering for those with incurable diseases, the old and infirm. Gramps wrestles with his conscience and thinks of his own old age and the burden that he will be to Pud, but cannot let Brink down. The next day, Evans comes with papers to commit Gramps and turn Pud over to Demetria, thus convincing Gramps to let Brink out of the tree. After he gently tells Pud of his decision to go with Brink, Pud cries that he loves his Gramps so much that he wants to go with Mr. Brink, too. Heartbroken when Gramps tells him he cant come too, Pud runs off. Just before Gramps goes to the sanitarium, he pretends that Mr. Brink has said that Demetria and the sheriff are due to die soon. Marcia Giles, Grampss loyal housekeeper, also pretends to hear Mr. Brinkss pronouncements, frightening Demetria and the sheriff into leaving. While Marcia and Gramps go looking for Pud, who has been hiding, Pud is goaded into climbing a fence built around a tree when Mr. Brink calls him a baby calf. Pud does not touch the tree, but instead falls to the ground and is paralyzed. Realizing that Puds terrible pain will only end with death, Gramps takes the boy in his arms and summons Mr. Brink from the tree. Now touched by Death, Gramps and Pud both feel wonderful and walk hand-in-hand beside Mr. Brink, joyful they will be together for eternity, reunited with Nellie.

On Borrowed Time (1939) - NY TIMES Review published July 7, 1939
THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; Paul Osborns Fantasy, On Borrowed Time, Reaches the Capitols Screen Under a Metro By-Line--
By FRANK S. NUGENT
Published: July 7, 1939

What producers like best, we hear, is the kind of review that puts the nice things first and buries the not-so-nice ones (if they have to be mentioned at all) in paragraphs three and four. We dont worry much about the producers usually, but this once we will make a concession to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. On Borrowed Time, which it submitted yesterday to the Capitol, is a mighty pleasant film, with a deal of warmth and sentiment and just enough ornery human acidity to keep it off the alkaline, or mawkish, side. It has an original theme (for the screen) and a panel of skilled players, and we are reasonably sure almost every one is going to enjoy it.

Butand you knew the but was comingit isnt nearly so effective on the screen as it was on the stage last year. Metro tips its hand a bit in the foreword by referring to it as an absurd, charming and stupendous story, though how it can be all three is an absurd, charming and stupendous question. The stupendous touches, we gather, were those we liked the least: the tempest effect when Gramps chased Mr. Brink up the tree and the fadeout when Gramps and Pud were exploring the Metro concept of heaven, a quarter-section of pasture land with a flock of lambs, an undertone of celestial music and a lithographic sunburst on the horizon.

Comparisons, of course, arent cricket, so well make no more of them except to express our faint regret that Dudley Digges was not playing the Gramps role (Lionel Barrymore is always too mannered to be any one but himself) and our deeper regret that the Hays code required the toning down of the salty dialogue that was at once the most comically shocking and endearing virtue of crotchety old Julian Northrup and his stalwart mimic, little Pud.

These objections inserted for the record and for the guidance of those who treasured the play, there remains the Paul Osborn-Lawrence Watkin theme, which Metros adapters have dealt with most fairly. It was, as youll remember, a folk tale brought up to date, the story of a stubborn and hot-tempered old man who didnt want to die until his stout-legged grandson had grown safely out of the mercenary clutches of his Aunt Dimmy. So when the shadowy Mr. Brink came for him, as he had come before for Granny and the boys parents, Gramp chased him up a tree and tried to keep him there.

The picture, like the play, is a tender thing and wistful, fantastic in its way, yet firmly rooted in human soil. It is absurd and it is charming and it is not at all stupendous. And it has, we are pleased to report, a company of players who have fallen admirably under the spell of their dramas mood. Best among them, to our mind, are Beulah Bondis Granny, young Bobs Watsons Pud, Sir Cedric Harddickes Mr. Brink and Eily Malyons Aunt Dimmy. Mr. Barrymores Gramps is well enough, we suppose. It is probably unfair to hold his Lionel Barrymorism against him.


ON BORROWED TIME, screen play by Alice D. G. Miller, Frank ONeil and Claudine West, based on the play by Paul Osborn, which in turn was adapted from the novel by Lawrence Edward Watkin; directed by Harold S. Bucquet; produced by Sidney Franklin for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At the Capitol.
Julian Northrup . . . . . Lionel Barrymore
Mr. Brink . . . . . Sir Cedric Hardwicke
Nellie Northrup . . . . . Beulah Bondi
Marcia Giles . . . . . Una Merkel
Pud . . . . . Bobs Watson
Mr. Grimes . . . . . Nat Pendleton
Dr. Evans . . . . . Henry Travers
Mr. Pilbeam . . . . . Grant Mitchell
Demetria Riffle . . . . . Eily Malyon
Sheriff Burlingame . . . . . James Burke
Reverend Murdock . . . . . Charles Waldron
Charles Wentworth . . . . . Ian Wolfe
Bill Lowry . . . . . Phillip Terry
James Northrup . . . . . Truman Bradley

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