A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)

I love this movie. All of the actors who played the main characters gave great performances.

James Dunn was a mess in real life.

The first feature Kazan directed and one of his best. Kazan later said of James Dunn:

Jimmy had been run out of movies for drinking. He was largely unemployable and felt ill at ease at the studio. But he was an awfully sweet, nice man, a hell of a guy. When I met him I said, this is it, this is Johnny Nolan, himself. He's full of watery-eyed Irish affection. He's ebullient. He feels guilty. He slinks. He and the girl are authentic, so I stayed off the background as much as possible and got onto their faces. By far the most authentic thing about the film is Peggy Ann Garner's face. Nothing compares with it except maybe Jimmy Dunn's face.

Read the book.

You can watch this film on YouTube.

I love this movie, too. My grandmother was Norwegian, grew up in Brooklyn, and always said it reminded her of her own family.

Poor Peggy. She had an early death.

I haven't seen this yet but I've heard good things about it.

Garner's second husband was Albert Salmi, who appeared in Kazan's "Wild River" (1960). They had a daughter and divorced in the early 60s. Salmi remarried and moved to Spokane: he shot his second wife, then himself in 1990.

Great film. Kazan distilled all of the best parts of the (very excellent) book while retaining much of its complexity. It is a fantastic read and if you like Aunt Sissy in the movie, you will really fall for her in the book. Such a great character, and Joan Blondell nailed her energy.

I read the book many years ago, and discovered the movie back in the early 2000s. I didn't know Kazan was the director, but that explains a lot. It's right up there with my all-time-favorite B&W movies.

If you haven't seen it, you should.

I really don't understand why this boring movie has such a hold on people.

Peggy Ann, James Dunn, Anne Revere, and Ray Milland on Oscar night.

I thought it was a bit creepy how Lloyd Nolan moves in on the family and they’re all basically waiting for Jimmy Dunn to die. ACAB.

[quote] I really don't understand why this boring movie has such a hold on people.

Because it isn't boring.

It's a really lovely film. Highly recommended for those who haven't seen it.

It's not one of those creaky old black and white films.

I cried twice when I first saw it. When Peggy finds the small bouquet of flowers on her desk and when in the torment of giving birth to a baby they literally have no money for Dorothy McQuire spills out her feelings to her daughter of why she treated her as she did.

In Kazan's auto bio he talks about I believe being in the army and on movie night they show this film and nobody has any idea he's the director so he gets unfiltered opinions. Daryl Zanuck liked the film so much it got Kazan into the holy of holies the 20th Century Fox executive steam room where I assume many a business meeting was held.

He had refinement...

Didn't Betty Grable turn down the role of Aunt Sissy?

The house where Betty Smith wrote "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" in Williamsburg still stands,

The Aunt Sissy role was intended for Alice Faye. She had complications with her second pregnancy, and was hospitalized. She lost the role to Joan Blondell. Joan was perfect for the part. She revitalized her career as a character actress.

R12 The book, at least, had a hold on my mother. She was raised in the Depression and lived with Reverse Snobbery for the rest of her life.

I tried to watch the movie on Youtube last night but it was too sentimental for me. And Irish drunks and children bore me. And I distrust Elia Kazan.

R9, she dodged a bullet. For real.

Brilliant film with so many loving and authentic period details. My mother always talked about how much she loved the book as well as the film and that it reminded her of her own Jewish family and upbringing though she grew up in a Manhattan lower east side tenement about 20 years later than the events portrayed.

When I finally read the book a few years ago I was actually a little disappointed. I found it much less sentimental than the film and the characters are a lot tougher, even little Francie.

Anyway, I can't imagine anyone can watch the graduation scene at the end of the film and not bawl their eyes out.

Brilliant film with so many loving and authentic period details. My mother always talked about how much she loved the book as well as the film and that it reminded her of her own Jewish family and upbringing though she grew up in a Manhattan lower east side tenement about 20 years later than the events portrayed.

When I finally read the book a few years ago I was actually a little disappointed. I found it much less sentimental than the film and the characters are a lot tougher, even little Francie.

Anyway, I can't imagine anyone can watch the graduation scene at the end of the film and not bawl their eyes out.

Beautiful movie. One of my favorites. I don't understand why TCM doesn't show it more often.

They got a cut in rent for cleaning the hallways. When I was growing up in Brooklyn in the 60s we got $15 off the rent for keeping the halls clean. I helped my mom every Saturday morning. So instead of $105 a month our rent was only $90.

this was one of my favorite books

A new broom...

I read the book in high school and loved it so much I found the movie. I remember the movie was almost a word-for-word copy of the book, but ended halfway through the novel. Is this correct or did I just miss half of the movie?

Peggy Ann and Bob

No, you didn't miss any of the movie. In the movie, Francie's 8th grade graduation is followed almost immediately by the policeman's marriage proposal to Francie's widowed mother. In the novel these two events occur several years apart. In the interim, Francie worked in an office job, then enrolled in college (skipping high school). This was the most boring part of the novel which was why it was omitted from the movie.

The above post was for R31.

Thanks R33,

I think I’ll either watch the movie or read the book again. I’m pretty sure my partner would hate the movie, so maybe reading would be better for our relationship!

[QUOTE] A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Does the book tell us what kind of tree it was?

An excellent and under appreciated film; I only saw it for the first time within the past 2 years on TCM and was shocked by how good it was and how much it moved me.

One of the great and most authentic films about family life in the United States and the fight for many on the margins economically to just try to survive while still hoping to somehow attain their piece of the American Dream...

R6 your grandmother must've enjoyed "I Remember Mama" about the San Francisco Norwegian family in the early 1900s. And from 1949-1957, TV series "Mama" starring Peggy Wood..

The Tree of Heaven, or Ailanthus, gained fame in 1943 as a symbol of endurance in Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

If the film had continued the story that's in the book about Francie's young adulthood after leaving school, they would have had to find older actors to play her and her brother. I think Kazan made the right decision to end the film where he did.

If the film had continued the story that's in the book about Francie's young adulthood after leaving school, they would have had to find older actors to play her and her brother. I think Kazan made the right decision to end the film where he did.

The natural gas hook ups to the interior lights always make me nervous lol.

Look who's...

R36 = Barbara Walters.

James Dunn played Shirley Temple's young widowed father in one of her earliest and biggest hits DIMPLES. She sang "On the Good Ship Lollipop" to him.

Why can't network television produce wonderful, but half-forgotten musicals like A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN? Audiences may not know the material but, if you could just convince them to tune in, they would love it.

Instead we just keep getting GREASE and ANNIE and THE SOUND OF MUSIC. I'm sure THE MUSIC MAN with Hugh will be next.

One of my favorite movie - I watch it, Marty and A Catered Affair any chance I get for that mid-century black & white NY working class charm.

These tenements that these stories take place in --- what are they today?

Another song from the musical...

Thank you R39

R21 Betty lived on the top (fourth) floor at 702 Grand Street near Graham Avenue.

Nice night!

[r45], Shirley sang "On the Good Ship Lollipop" in "Bright Eyes", which featured a scene-stealing performance byhe t Jane Withers. I know Dunn was in it, but I think he played her dad's best friend. He had to tell her that her dad had been killed when the plane he was piloting crashed.

Dunn played her dad in "Stand Up and Cheer, " which was the film that made her a star.

Thanks for that clip R52, what a marvelous scene.

I read somewhere the Lloyd Nolan character sexually abused Francie in real life

Betty

R43, they are still there- I lived in one! Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Grand St near Manhattan Ave. As someone else mentioned, the building where she wrote the book still exists. You can eat in the backyard of a restaurant of that building and the tree is probably still there!

Did Peggy plant her own tree and make it grow?