When I Grow Up *** (1951, Bobby Driscoll, Robert Preston, Martha Scott, Charley Grapewin) – Classic Movie Review 12,083

When I Grow Up (1951) is the only film directed by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Michael Kanin. 

Writer-director Michael Kanin’s 1951 drama When I Grow Up stars Bobby Driscoll, Robert Preston, Charley Grapewin, Martha Scott, Sherry Jackson, Johnny McGovern and Frances Chaney.

Driscoll plays an unhappy youngster who comes to feel less of an outcast after he looks through and studies the meaning of his grandpa (Charley Grapewin)’s notebooks.

When I Grow Up is an unfashionable heart-warmer with a good nature and with sweet performances looming large, adding up to an endearing small-scale tale for all ages and all eras.

The 14-year-old Driscoll is appealing as the kid in this well-made if downbeat drama based on the timeless topic of growing up.

Producer Sam Spiegel was credited as S P Eagle.

Child star Driscoll gives a stupendous performance that helped him to win a special Oscar for the most outstanding juvenile actor of 1949 at the 1950 Academy Awards, for The Window (1949) and Disney’s So Dear to My Heart (1948). But, after his Disney career, he later fell on bad times and drugs, dying impoverished and ending up in an unmarked pauper’s grave in 1968, aged only 31. He played Johnny in Song of the South (1946), Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island (1950) and voiced Peter Pan (1953).

The cast are Bobby Driscoll as Josh / Danny Reed, Robert Preston as Father Reed, Martha Scott as Mother Reed, Sherry Jackson as Ruthie Reed, Johnny McGovern as Duckface Kelly, Frances Chaney as Mrs. Kelly, Poodles Hanneford as Bobo, Ralph Dumke as Carp, Paul Guilfoyle as Doc, Paul Levitt as Carp’s Assistant, Griff Barnett as Dr. Bailey, Margaret Lloyd as Volunteer Nurse, Charley Grapewin as Grandpa Reed, Harry Morgan as Father Reed, Elisabeth Fraser as Mother Reed, Robert Hyatt as Binks, Hamilton Camp as Bully, Ruth Lee as Bully’s Mother, and Donald Gordon as Harmonica Boy.

The film was released on 20 April 1951 by United Artists.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,083

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com