This is the third movie in which I've seen Ruth Chatterton trying to reclaim her son. She lost her son in "The Laughing Lady" and "Frisco Jenny." That seems to be her thing.
In "Sarah and Son" Ruth plays Sarah Storm, a struggling performer. She married her stage partner Jim Grey (Fuller Mellish Jr.) and the two had a little boy. Jim, her husband, turned out to be a total waste of flesh. He was shiftless and lazy which left Sarah to be the breadwinner and nurturer to their son Bobby.
In a fit of drunken anger Jim joined the marine corp. And sold their son to Mr. And Mrs. Ashmore (Gilbert Emery and Doris Lloyd). Sarah went out to get some milk and when she came back the two of them were gone.
A few years later Sarah saw Jim in an infirmary for wounded troops. All she was able to get from him before he died was that the boy was with the Ashmores.
Sarah found the Ashmores, but they were totally unwilling to give up their adopted son. They wouldn't even let Sarah ascertain whether or not the boy was hers, which was like an admission that they knew the child belonged to her. Arbitrating between the two was the Ashmores' lawyer, Howard Vanning (Fredric March).
There's very little more distressing than seeing a woman search for her missing child. The angst and pain that she feels is palpable. Add into there the element of deceit when the woman knows where her child is, and it becomes positively enraging. But in the case with "Sarah and Son" it was even more of a cocktail of emotions because the boy Sarah so desperately wanted was ten-years-old and had only known one set of parents. Even should you hate the very sight of Mr. And Mrs. Ashmore and want them to suffer for keeping Sarah's child from her, would that be fair to young Bobby? It was such a conundrum and I hated "Sarah and Son" for it. I wanted to hate the Ashmores and make them suffer without causing Bobby to suffer, and there was no way to do that.
Unless, of course, Bobby voluntarily and happily chose to be with Sarah. Then it would be the fairytale ending: Sarah reunites with her son, the Ashmores get nothing, and Bobby is not forced into a situation he doesn't want to be in.
And that's the ending Hollywood delivered.
I didn't want fairytale even if I didn't want the more realistic ending which would've been Bobby wanting to stay with the Ashmores and Sarah reluctantly consenting. I know, I know, it had to end one way or the other and Ruth Chatterton had voluntarily given up her son in two other movies already, so she deserved a break.
In "Sarah and Son" Ruth plays Sarah Storm, a struggling performer. She married her stage partner Jim Grey (Fuller Mellish Jr.) and the two had a little boy. Jim, her husband, turned out to be a total waste of flesh. He was shiftless and lazy which left Sarah to be the breadwinner and nurturer to their son Bobby.
In a fit of drunken anger Jim joined the marine corp. And sold their son to Mr. And Mrs. Ashmore (Gilbert Emery and Doris Lloyd). Sarah went out to get some milk and when she came back the two of them were gone.
A few years later Sarah saw Jim in an infirmary for wounded troops. All she was able to get from him before he died was that the boy was with the Ashmores.
Sarah found the Ashmores, but they were totally unwilling to give up their adopted son. They wouldn't even let Sarah ascertain whether or not the boy was hers, which was like an admission that they knew the child belonged to her. Arbitrating between the two was the Ashmores' lawyer, Howard Vanning (Fredric March).
There's very little more distressing than seeing a woman search for her missing child. The angst and pain that she feels is palpable. Add into there the element of deceit when the woman knows where her child is, and it becomes positively enraging. But in the case with "Sarah and Son" it was even more of a cocktail of emotions because the boy Sarah so desperately wanted was ten-years-old and had only known one set of parents. Even should you hate the very sight of Mr. And Mrs. Ashmore and want them to suffer for keeping Sarah's child from her, would that be fair to young Bobby? It was such a conundrum and I hated "Sarah and Son" for it. I wanted to hate the Ashmores and make them suffer without causing Bobby to suffer, and there was no way to do that.
Unless, of course, Bobby voluntarily and happily chose to be with Sarah. Then it would be the fairytale ending: Sarah reunites with her son, the Ashmores get nothing, and Bobby is not forced into a situation he doesn't want to be in.
And that's the ending Hollywood delivered.
I didn't want fairytale even if I didn't want the more realistic ending which would've been Bobby wanting to stay with the Ashmores and Sarah reluctantly consenting. I know, I know, it had to end one way or the other and Ruth Chatterton had voluntarily given up her son in two other movies already, so she deserved a break.