This Time for Keeps (1942 film)

This Time for Keeps
This Time for Keeps
Directed by	Charles Reisner
Written by	Herman J. Mankiewicz; Muriel Roy Bolton; Rian James; Harry Ruskin;
Produced by	Samuel Marx
Starring	Ann Rutherford; Robert Sterling; Guy Kibbee;
Cinematography	Charles Lawton Jr.
Edited by	Fredrick Y. Smith
Music by	Lennie Hayton
Production; company	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Distributed by	Loew's Inc.
Release date	March 1942;
Running time	73 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$252,000
Box office	$327,000

This Time for Keeps is a 1942 American comedy film directed by Charles Reisner and starring Ann Rutherford, Robert Sterling, and Guy Kibbee. Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it followed on from the 1940 film Keeping Company.^[2]

This Time for Keeps (1947) starred Esther Williams.

Plot

Lee White, left alone while his wife Kit is out of town, moves in with her parents just to have some company. Lee is persuaded by father-in-law Harry to quit is job as a car salesman and come into the real-estate business with him. His first assignment is to sell a piece of land to Arthur Freeman, a wealthy property investor.

Kit's little sister Harriet enters a contest in a movie theater hoping to win a cash prize, but instead wins 200 bars of the sponsor's soap. Kit, meantime, comes home to find her husband and father working together but quarreling over Harry's unwillingness to interfere with Lee's work.

An inspirational idea to scatter Harriet's soap on the property for sale, making Freeman fear a soap company's about to buy it, backfires when Harry talks the client out of it. A frustrated Lee is offered a job by Freeman and considers it, concerning his wife.

Lee joins the rest of the family at a costume ball, where both Harry and Freeman are dressed as clowns. He mixes them up and by accident gets Harry to understand his love for Kit and her loved ones. As they agree to work better together, Harriet wins first prize at the ball—another 100 bars of soap.

Cast

Ann Rutherford as Katherine 'Kit' White
Robert Sterling as Lee White
Guy Kibbee as Harry Bryant
Irene Rich as Mrs. Bryant
Virginia Weidler as Harriett Bryant
Henry O'Neill as Arthur Freeman
Dorothy Morris as Edith Bryant
Richard Crane as Eustace Andrews
Joe Strauch Jr. as Milton A. Jones
Tim Ryan as Professor Diz
Connie Gilchrist as Miss Nichols
Lucien Littlefield as Herb
Frances Carson as Mrs. Arthur Freeman
Regina Wallace as Mrs. Lornow, Hostess
Robert Emmett Keane as Burt Reiner
Mark Daniels as Mr. Sawyer
Hooper Atchley as Masquerade Party Judge
Ken Christy as Train Conductor
Frank Hagney as Electrical Lineman
Ava Gardner as Girl in Car Lighting Cigarette

Reception

The film made $207,000 in the US and Canada and $120,000 elsewhere during its initial release, making MGM a loss of $57,000.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
^ Fetrow p.248

Bibliography

Fetrow, Alan G. Feature Films, 1940-1949: a United States Filmography. McFarland, 1994.

External links

This Time for Keeps at IMDb
This Time for Keeps at TCMDB
This Time for Keeps at AllMovie
This Time for Keeps at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films

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[Mannix-1] The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.

[2] Fetrow p.248

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