White Banners

It's nice to see FAY BAINTER in a starring role opposite CLAUDE RAINS. Bainter has the sort of role you might expect BARBARA STANWYCK to do in one of her "Stella Dallas" moods about a mother whose love for her son has to be from afar until she comes to live in a household where she's able to be a part of his life again.

And thanks to a good script, there's no settling for a happy ending. Having satisfied herself that he's on the right path, she leaves him thinking that his adopted mother was his real mom and she walks off into the wintry landscape just as she drifted into the household at the beginning.

It's a warm story, full of Lloyd C. Douglas touches (he wrote the original Cosmopolitan magazine story) and it's nicely played by a cast that includes JACKIE COOPER (the boy inventor with the likable personality), BONITA GRANVILLE (his love interest in a puppy love sort of way), and JAMES STEPHENSON as Cooper's father who has a reunion with the son given up for adoption years ago, but keeps the secret from him.

Of course the flaws are there, as they are in any story of this kind penned by Mr. Douglas. The sentiment is poured on pretty thick at times, the speeches seem like pearls of wisdom coming from characters who always know exactly what to say in any sort of predicament, and Bainter's character, in particular, is a bit too noble and self-sacrificing to be really believable.

But she gives the role her personal warmth, dignity and intelligence in this story of a struggling inventor (Raines) who gets a lot of his inspiration from a woman with a penchant for helping others.

Summing up: A little known film, dated now, but still has some interesting things to say. The 1909 era is nicely evoked and the patent process for new inventions is something rarely dealt with in stories of this kind.

Trivia note: FAY BAINTER had two Best Actress nominations in 1938: one for JEZEBEL (she won Best Supporting Actress) and the other for Best Actress in WHITE BANNERS.