CLAUDIA introduced a bright new star in Dorothy McGuire, teamed with veteran Robert Young as a recently wed couple facing issues that range from humorous and fleeting to serious and transformative. Edmund Goulding directed the reality-hewn 1943 comedy-drama that touched zeitgeist nerves and scored a sizable hit.

‘David Naughton’ (Young) and his wife ‘Claudia’ (McGuire) live on a small farm property in Connecticut. A genial, well-balanced guy, trying to get a leg up as an architect, David likes the farm and loves his wife. But the younger Claudia has some growing up to do, and her flighty immaturity is vexing. Not convinced that David finds her sufficiently alluring (she’s wrong, he does), to provoke a jealous reaction from him she naively engages in a flirt with ‘Jerry Seymour’ (Reginald Gardiner), a readily randy neighbor. That foolishness is supplanted by the news that a stork package is en route. But life takes as well as gives; Claudia’s mother (Ina Claire) is gravely ill. David is mature enough to grasp the relative seriousness of situations, but Claudia’s heretofore sheltered outlook is due for a grown-up jolt.

Though set a decade back during midst of the Depression, war-weary audiences responded not just due to it being a well-made little movie but because in the middle of WW2 there were countless child-brides, love bombed by the urgency of the moment, quick-hitched to fellas going off to question marks on maps, leaving behind legions of ladies who’d jumped from math class to matrimony with little briefing on the dazed “Who-are-you’s”? that showed up after the giddy “I do’s”.

Not an dashing heartthrob like Gable, Power or Flynn, or a commanding presence like Cagney, Tracy or Bogart, the underrated Young was solid, dependable and likable, and at 35 had logged 68 parts over 15 years, including winners  Three Comrades, Northwest Passage and The Mortal Storm. His ready warmth and easy delivery are key; Gardiner’s blithe cad is amusing; and there’s a very funny segment with Olga Baclanova taking center stage as catty opera star ‘Madame Daruschka’, whom Claudia foolishly offers to buy their farm. *

But the piece is titled Claudia, after all, and it wouldn’t have worked without the freshness of Dorothy McGuire. It may be that at 27 she was some years beyond the character’s innocence level and the clever dialogue exchanges in Morrie Ryskind’s screenplay ring stagey (as do the sets) but no wonder: McGuire knew Claudia inside out, having embodied her on Broadway for two years and 722 performances. The play, written by Rose Franken, came out of her 1939 book “Claudia: The Story Of A Marriage”, the first of a number of stories about the girl-turned-woman. Sweet, silly, sexy and smart, McGuire as Claudia won over audiences and achieved stardom, soon to be secured by her excellent work in hits A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, The Spiral Staircase and Gentleman’s Agreement.

Veteran director Edmund Goulding was on a hot streak in 1943, stacking this charmer with Forever And A Day, Old Acquaintance and The Constant Nymph. Grossing $6,400,000, Claudia placed 38th, and McGuire and Young were soon paired in The Enchanted Cottage, also a success. Then in 1946 they were back with Claudia and David, a pleasant way to pass more time in the company of Mr. & Mrs. Naughton.

With Jean Howard, Elsa Janssen and Frank Twedell. 91 minutes.

* Olga Baclanova, 1893-1974, the ‘Russian Tigress’, in films (Russia and the States) since 1914, made her last movie appearance in this picture, going out with a khlopnut—Russian for “bang“.