Bachelor Mother

Directed by Garson Kanin, with a screenplay by Norman Krasna, this above average romantic comedy earned Felix Jackson his first and only Academy Award nomination for his Original Story. Kanin (with wife Ruth Gordon) and Krasna received Oscar nominations for their own stories and/or screenplays, with Krasna talking home the gold for Princess O’Rourke (1943), a film he also directed. This one stars Ginger Rogers, in the title role, David Niven, and Charles Coburn. Rogers plays a department store employee who’s mistaken for the mother of an abandoned (and adorable!) baby. The store is family owned and run by Coburn and his ‘playboy’ son Niven. Through a confluence of events, bachelorette Rogers ‘accepts’ the responsibility of raising the baby she names Johnnie (Elbert Coplen Jr.) in order to keep her job at the store. She is assisted in this task by inexperienced caregiver Niven, whose father later comes to believe Johnnie is his illegitimate grandchild. —Classicfilmguide.com