The Late George Apley

The Late George Apley is a 1947 American comedy romance film about a stuffy, upper-class Bostonian who is forced to adjust to a changing world. It starred Ronald Colman in the title role and was based on John P. Marquand's novel of the same name and the subsequent play by Marquand and George S. Kaufman. Plot It is 1912, and George Apley (Ronald Colman) is a stuffy, self-satisfied member of Boston's upper class, supremely confident of the superiority of his hometown and his family. He is fond of quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson at every opportunity. For 18 years, he has hosted Thanksgiving dinners at his home, but the dinner that opens the film marks an irrevocable change. His comfortable, predictable world is overturned when he learns, to his horror, that both his son and his daughter have fallen in love with non-Bostonians instead of with the partners Mr. Apley and the family have arranged. Son John, always intended for his cousin Agnes, a shy girl who adores him, has fallen for Myrtle, the daughter of a successful manufacturer who lives in Worcester. Daughter Eleanor is in love with Howard Boulder, a lecturer at Harvard who eventually loses his position through George's interference. Among Boulder's offenses, besides coming from New York and attending Yale, is his teaching that Emerson was, for his time, a radical (which George has accepted by the end of the film). George really begins to see himself through others' eyes when he is rejected for president of the bird-watching club because of his refusal to allow an undesirable relative to be buried in the family plot and because of his actions to separate the young lovers. Mrs. Apley divulges to Agnes that George had once been in love with a vivacious local Irish girl, and was sent abroad to recover. When he returned, they were married and, she says, found some happiness. Roger Newcombe, George's brother-in-law and friend, reminds George of how he felt all those years ago when he was separated from the girl he loved. George tries to change, and he invites Myrtle's father to his club to discuss planning the careful introduction of their family to Boston society in preparation for announcing John and Myrtle's engagement. But Myrtle's father surprises him by saying that he knows his daughter and he knows John, and neither would be happy living in the other's world. He plans to send Myrtle away to California for a year or two, to forget.