User reviews

"Journey for Margaret" is a propaganda film but with a twist. Made in 1942, right after the U.S. entered World War II, it's based on a real story. A reporter, John Davis (Robert Young), and his wife Nora(Laraine Day) are caught in London during the blitz. Nora loses the baby she is carrying and eventually goes home to the states. John stays, but the passion that made him a powerful writer is gone. He's seen too much hopelessness and futility. While working an air raid, he helps to save a little boy, Peter, from a home where the rest of the family is killed. It leaves an indelible impression on him.

John meets Peter again when he visits an orphanage run by Trudy Strauss (Fay Bainter). There he also meets a very traumatized little girl, Margaret (Margaret O'Brien). Peter and Margaret bond with John. When it comes time for him to leave England, he wants to bring them with him to the states and adopt them. But all the flights to Lisbon are full for months in advance, and the only way he can bring them is to bring them as his 40 pound luggage limit. So that means only one child can go with him.

This is a really interesting film with excellent acting from everyone. Young gives a heartfelt performance, and Day is very touching as his wife. Margaret O'Brien, even at age 4 or 5, was capable of strong emotional acting.

Wonderful story.

These words were spoken by a bystander in the film who sees the after effects of a German bomb raid on London on the injured victims, including children. That was the sentiment of many Americans during WWII as well.

This film was meant to tug at the heart strings and build ongoing support for the war effort. It's hard to imagine Hollywood actually being supportive of military endeavors, given the current climate today.

There is one very touching scene, right after Nora (Laraine Day) loses her baby. She tells her husband (Robert Young) "They've killed our baby...all our babies, tomorrow's babies, the day after tomorrow's, all our babies, forever dead..." It really is a heart-wrenching scene. Another heartbreaking scene is when little Margaret is allowed to cry freely for the first time (without being punished by her mean ex-foster mom). The Orphange director wipes her own tears and says "Surely little children who have to change worlds must be allowed to cry for all the things they've lost".

I found this to be an interesting war era film with good performances by the actors. I was especially impressed with little Margaret O'Brien's performance, given this was her screen debut at only 5 years old. This film so impacted her, that she actually changed her name to the character's (she was born Angela O'Brien). It's a shame she never successfully made the transition to adult roles. I also thought the little boy Peter, played by William "Billy" Severn, was too adorable for words. He only has a few films to his credit and went on to travel the world as an evangelist for TBN. Unfortunately, he died of a massive heart attack at only 45 years old.

I also had a little history lesson as a result of the film. The film closes with the scene of the New York City skyline darkening due to a blackout. I thought that was some type of projection - that perhaps if the US wasn't diligent, that we too could experience the bombings that Britian and other countries had. But I did some research and was surprised to learn that East coast cities of the US actually DID have blackouts due to German U-boats lurking off the coast that were sinking merchant ships ( referred to as the "Second Happy Time"). I always appreciate when a movie helps me learn some US History in the process!

Some will find this film a little manipulative in trying to gain the viewer's sympathies. But I found it a good reminder of who the littlest victims of war were - the children.

... and unfortunately W. S. Van Dyke's swan song as a director, dying in 1943.

Robert Young was a great every man. You could just slip him into any non villainous role and he would be at least serviceable. And being serviceable works to his advantage here since his character, foreign correspondent John Davis, is meant to be a sympathetic place holder so as not to detract from the real attraction - the children at Trudy Strauss' home for war orphans. The back story is that John is looking for stories and helping out during raids in 1940 London when his pregnant wife (Larraine Day) is injured in one of them and as a result can no longer have children.

John and his wife, after the tragedy, become the eat, drink, and be merry type with an extra helping of drink, refusing to acknowledge their loss. Day's character decides to go back to the US, and afterwards, that is when John finds the orphanage. But these are no ordinary orphans. This is where things become weird for the modern viewer. Because it is obvious that what this film really needs is a touch of the sci-fi - for a therapist from after 1990 to come to 1940 London and treat all of these people for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which they all have and which won't be recognized as a mental disorder for another 50 years.

The children will just scream out for seemingly no reason, O'Brien's character just wants to cry hysterically at times and be held. Other times, all is normal. It is insinuated that she has been beaten and returned by several foster families because she does this. So after a time, John becomes fond of both Margaret and Peter, a little boy he rescued earlier in a raid and who was orphaned by it. The children crave the stability they lost and John comes to represent that stability. So how can John adopt these kids and get his wife to snap out of her denial? And how exactly DO you safely transport two kids across the ocean in the middle of a war?

There are some odd and interesting things going on here. This Japanese diplomat keeps appearing and saying he must get to Washington by December (1941?). It seems to be played as a joke. Did wartime audiences find this funny after Pearl Harbor? Then there is the way that the orphanage decides between two children when only one can be adopted - an intelligence test? I never could figure if this was a law or just a bad idea.

Margaret O'Brien is very convincing for a five year old actress. She's not just a cute little waif, she genuinely projects the range of emotions required of her performance. Fay Bainter seems to excel at playing women who run orphanages. And Laraine Day as an American during the London blitz... Was I the only person who expected her husband to find a bunch of stolen jewels in the rubble? Well THAT is another movie entirely.

"Journey For Margaret" was one of the best movies regarding WWII I have ever seen. Did you know this was based on a true story? I read it in an old Readers Digest, and the original tale is much sadder as because of wartime regulations, only Margaret can be adopted and taken back to America. However, there is no way that ending would have played in 1942! Robert Young and Laraine Day, overlooked so often when discussing MGM/old Hollywood stars, really portray the pathos of would-be parents losing, then gaining their chance of parenthood. Don't miss this flick when it next plays on Turner Classic!

Margaret O'Brien did her first starring role in this film after only a bit part in Babes On Broadway. In fact in Journey For Margaret her troubles during wartime are the whole basis for the film.

She's not alone in her troubles, World War II left a lot of British and other children orphans. Newspaper correspondent Robert Young rescues young Margaret from a bombed out building during the London blitz. But unfortunately the experience leaves her an orphan.

A short time later Young is sent up north to a residence for war orphans and wouldn't you know it he meets up with Margaret along with the woman who runs the home, Fay Bainter. Of course a bond develops between Young and O'Brien.

Young's grieving as well, he and wife Laraine Day lost their unborn child during a bombing attack. Day's also suffered some post traumatic stress as a result and is in real danger of going off the deep end permanently. And still another orphan William Severn also manages to charm Young as well.

If this isn't enough plot ingredients for a real ten towel weeper than you have the soul of Medusa. There was tragedy behind the camera as well because director Woody Van Dyke was dying of cancer as he made this film. He would take his own life after completing Journey For Margaret.

Any committed film-goer knows exactly where this plot is headed. But the players are all capable enough and Journey For Margaret will still draw some tears from the most hard hearted of audiences.

How refreshing it is to come across a World War Two film minus the usual cliche scenes and ideas that infiltrated so many movies during the war years. Robert Young (as reporter John Davis) gives a consistent and profound portrayal surrounding a real concern for the human condition in terms of the effects of war on children. Margaret O'Brien (as orphan Margaret White)is haunting as the child with the magnesium bomb. William Severn's performance (as playmate Peter Humphreys) is addictive. But then there is so much good acting in this film by so many of the cast, especially that of Fay Bainter (as Trudy Strauss). The film makes it clear that war is the common enemy of all children, for, as Trudy says, "surely children must be allowed to cry for all they have lost."

I have always loved Margaret O'Brien's movies. She is the cutest little girl. I don't think I have missed one. I don't understand why anyone would consider her an albatross or not like her in Journey for Margaret. I wish she had of made more movies. My very favorite movie with her in it was Little Women. She was also very good in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes and The Canterville Ghost, Glory, and Jane Eyre. She is very diverse in her acting. The movie Journey For Margaret was based on a true story. When John Davis was trying to find someone to take one of the children on the plane in place of luggage and he spoke to the Japanese embassy representative who told him he needed to be back in Japan by the first of December ___(1942), it reminded people of what happened on the 7th. Lots of history in this movie.

You wouldn't automatically think so, considering the premise.

An American journalist in London during the Blitz gets emotionally involved in his work when he meets some cute, tragic orphans.

In spite of the film's three-hanky outline, it actually works quite well, being both funnier and less drippy than you would ever expect. Robert Young and Laraine Day may be second string leads, but they're really quite effective.

Peter, the orphaned boy with his little lamb, had much more appeal for me than Margaret O'Brien however. I have never really understood the hypnotic hold she had on moviegoers in the '40's. In "Meet Me in St. Louis", she's the albatross around Judy Garland's neck. To me, this film will always be "Journey for Peter's Lamb".

If I were required to choose the best 1940's war orphan film, then my choice would be clear. It wouldn't be "Journey for Margaret". It would be "The Search", the gripping semi-documentary from 1948.

Curiously, directed by two individuals, W. S Van Dyke and Herbert Kline, this story is quite an original one, focusing in on the trauma suffered by children during the second world war. It was the film debut of the five year old Margaret O'Brien as the titular Margaret and the final film of co-director, Dyke, who was perhaps best known for some of the films in the Andy Hardy and Thin Man series. A useful man to Hollywood when you consider his "one take Woody" sobriquet, however, he was dead a year after the release of Journey to Margaret: diagnosed with heart disease and cancer, he tragically committed suicide. His cohort, Kline, was largely a documentary maker and indeed, the best scenes of the movie show hellish, nightmarish images of a blitzed London. To modern sensibilities, the action and dialogue are often melodramatic, but one must consider it is of its time and the war was still raging. In the acting stakes, Robert Young is a likeable enough presence as the leading man, Laraine Day is the nominal leading lady but really only bookends the film. Much of the heavy lifting is done by children-the aforementioned O'Brien and William Severn, the former, of course, went on to be a major star, particularly as a youngster, though her career had longevity. Here she is eerily precocious, 5 going on 45! Severn didn't take his acting career beyond childhood but is amusingly quirky in this outing. Amongst the adult supporting cast, the wonderfully characterful Halliwell Hobbes is wasted in a potential surrogate father role but Fay Bainter brings great warmth and a touch of enjoyable mischief to what, on paper, could have been a righteous, goody two shoes, as the lady in charge of a childrens' home and Nigel Bruce has an unusually straight and shrewd role as a friend and confidant to Young and though it is not the best of roles, he brings his trademark avuncularity and twinkle to proceedings. The film is short at 80 minutes and is worth watching for some memorable cinematography, touches of humour and able character acting.

I know that my review of this movie is not going to be popular, but if every comment on IMDb was glowing, they wouldn't be worth much.

This movie is well made, well acted, and well directed. I'm NOT saying this is a bad movie at all. I give it 3 of 10 stars based on my enjoyment of the film, not based on its worth to others. Titanic was the most successful movie of all time, but I gave it a 4 based on my personal enjoyment of it. The problem I had with both films was/is, they are films for women. Nothing wrong with films for women, mind you, but let's call them for what they are, Chick Flicks. You can't expect me to like Fried Green Tomatoes either. It's a movie made for women, and men sitting there with a beer on a Saturday afternoon are not going to enjoy it. It's like those movies that run on the Lifetime channel, with names like "Not With My Daughter You Don't" and "All Men Are Filthy Stupid Pigs." Guys just aren't going to enjoy that stuff.

Journey for Margaret was one gigantic tug at the heartstrings, and I hate having those yanked. It always makes me uncomfortable. I'm not beyond emotion, in small doses. I loved It's a Wonderful Life, for instance, but the deep emotion of that film was broken up by humor, so I could handle it. Journey for Margaret is one long cry-fest, with gooey sentiment dripping on your shoes the whole way through. Women love to cry, so that works out fine for them, but men do not. Throughout this film I found myself saying, "Oh great, the pretty little girl is crying again." And I like Margaret O'Brien. She just about carried off The Canterville Ghost single-handedly.

So, ladies, enjoy the film. Guys, if you're reading these reviews because this movie is coming up in half an hour, find something, anything else to watch. "Oh look, that Star Trek episode where Kirk fights the Gorn is on!"

I accidently came across this movie while channel surfing. I was stuck in my seat, it has the old time romance, but through all the softness it seems to show you the horrors of war through a child's eyes. It was one of those movies you wish would never end.

This is a very interesting film, because it was released in 1942--not long after America entered the war--but it takes place in 1940 and 1941, so audiences had just lived through the events that were the background for the film's action. And they knew some of what was to come after the final scene in the movie.

Robert Young and Laraine Day are a young married couple who have been "on the scene", we might say, as the Nazis have invaded and threatened much of Europe. As the film opens, they have moved to London, where the city is under constant threat of bombardment. Their greatest desire is to have a child. In essence, they seek normalcy in a world where people have become accustomed to war, i.e. they are perpetually afraid.

I can only imagine how much viewers in 1942 identified with the characters in this film. Wishing to bring children into a safe world is such a visceral, universal desire. Later in the film, Robert Young is confronted with an emotional choice that surely tugged at the heartstrings of all who watched. And the ending of the film is a scene that brilliantly involves the emotions of viewers via a graphic representation of the horror of war. No doubt it inspired many to buck up with its hopeful message--as films of the day were designed to do.

Robert Young is strong in his role as the husband who is strong for his wife. Laraine Day is inspiring as the wife, though her part is limited. The two children (including Margaret O'Brien in her first credited role) are delightful.

A child's view of war and the viewer's look at the effects of war on the child.Very realistic London of World War II made during the war. A movie that offered war time families hope. Five year old Margaret O'Brien as the orphan girl will tug at your heart in a way only the "old time" movies could. DO NOT miss the hopeful ending of this film.

I really didn't know what to expect from Journey for Margaret, so while the film was unfolding, I wasn't as in love with it as I am now. After the film mellowed for a few days, I realized what a fantastic movie it is. Right in the middle of WWII, and right after the United States' involvement, there came a host of films that all promoted the same theme: We're scared to death, but even if we don't win, we'll go down swinging. There were also quite a few movies with the reminder that we're fighting this war for our children, and masterpieces like The Pied Piper and Journey for Margaret, both released in 1942, belong in that pack. Robert Young and Laraine Day are an American couple in Europe, but after Laraine suffers a miscarriage, she returns to the States alone to recover. Robert gets involved in Fay Bainter's orphanage and bonds with two war orphans: Margaret O'Brien and William Severn. Margaret gets the introducing credit in this film, and in her first scene, she gives a mind-blowing, heart-breaking performance and bawls her eyes out. I don't know how director W.S. Van Dyke got a four-or-five-year-old to do a scene like that, but it's no wonder Margaret O'Brien rocketed to stardom after this film. Hot Toasty Rag was proud to award her the Juvenile Award for 1942-1943 for her work in this film, as well as a few others. While most of this film is extremely heavy and will have you reaching for your handkerchiefs, there are some adorable parts when Robert Young volunteers at the orphanage. Both Margaret and William become so attached to him, they actually get into a water fight during bath time, declaring, "He's my Mr. Davis!" "No, he's my Mr. Davis!" To pacify them, Robert suggests cutting himself in half. It's very cute, and it's no wonder he became known for his sweet, fatherly figures in film and television, after taking on roles like this.

I saw this movie in the theatre in 1942-43 and I really hated it, of course I was only a kid myself! I have avoided it all these years until tonight when I saw it on TCM. It really is a pretty good movie. I have seen Margaret O'Brien in many other things and she really was a pretty good actress. I mentioned seeing it to my adult daughter and gave her the story line. When I mentioned the flight to Portugal as the first lap in the flight to the US, she insisted that it wasn't so. I replied well, that was what they did in "Casablanca" and she retorted that "Casablanca" was in Africa. Well, since I was only 12 years old at the time I really don't know--I just presumed that it was because of the war.

Shirley in Indy

"Journey for Margaret" is a beautiful film about the stress of World War II. John Davis (Robert Young) is an out-of-place guy who adopts two children, Margaret (Margaret O' Brien) and Peter (William Severn). While these children are sometimes hard to take care of, well, because of their fear of war. And that's what makes the movie so great.

Robert Young as the film's main protagonist gives out an eye-catching and astonishing performance as the children, especially Margaret, are set to make your eyes well up; with their unforgettable performance and gorgeous talent. While Margaret was only like 4 at the time, she still did well acting in "Journey for Margaret" and almost immediately caught the audience's attention despite her unique crying in "Meet me in St. Louis", her funny attitude in "Thousands Cheer" and tempting brattiness in "The Secret Garden." Robert Young was also a great actor too. Though, I remember him being in another Margaret O'Brien movie a couple years after this one where they were trying to help a cowardly ghost or something like that.

The concept of this movie being based on a true story is what makes it such a fantastic film. Kids probably wouldn't get it, but adults will find it truly amazing

10 out of 10

It's 1940 and London is under the blitz. American reporter John Davis escapes France with his pregnant wife Nora for London. Nora suffers trauma and loses the baby. She cannot have another and she goes home. Meanwhile, he's writing and working with an orphanage run by Trudy Strauss. They are given little Margaret after three foster mothers cannot control the s-u-l-k-y child.

The little Margaret introduction is devastating. Margaret and Peter clinging to John is both hilarious and heartbreaking. The kids are great. I would keep Nora in London to build chemistry with the children. It's a missed opportunity for emotional drama. The Sophie's Choice is a little tough. John should work harder to keep them both. I want him to fight against making the choice. Margaret is quite a little scene stealer and the train is another one of those scenes. As for the ending, it is a war propaganda film and it ends with a great propaganda message.

Agree with "No Cliché..." a side of war especially that war that so much has been relayed conveyed dramatized not dramatized enough. The before and after on the returning servicemen. More graphic are the during .... Attention not specifically paid too often to *the children and especially to the children overseas It's a story, beautifully told, perfectly played (with subtlety) by Robert Young & others, After the introduction of a perfect round-eyed little Peter we have our sad-eyed heartbreaking heartwarming angel without whom many dialogues possibly this one could dissolve into a sentimental syrupy journey where we could wind up choked up and resenting the manipulation. But no chance when we have our little gem as Margaret..... * to all living, war is hell.

At the beginning of the picture, we are told that the people in it are fictitious, EXCEPT for Margaret. Margaret is real, we are reminded.

Margaret O'Brien played Margaret. Because she was only 4 years old, the studios thought that having her real name and her character name be the same would make it easier. I agree. Margaret O'Brien is the best child actress I have ever seen. Later, she normally plays comedic roles but she was terrific in this masterpiece motion picture.

This was Margaret O'Brien's first feature film. She was in a couple of short subjects previously. The movie reminds me of "Mrs. Miniver". Robert Young gives his reliable good performance. As an added bonus, the drop dead gorgeous Laraine Day plays Robert Young's wife.

(Margaret O'Brien at 6 years old, is best known for her role in "Meet Me in St. Louis" on Blu-ray. She was so good that Hollywood gave her a special award.) Margaret is still alive today. Oct. 2022.