Cinemama's Papa

Papa's Delicate Condition. "Vanilla." That's what Jackie Gleason calls his latest picture and that's what it basically is: sweet enough for the kids, plain enough for the grown folks--something the whole family can swallow without collywobbles. The concoction is inexpensive and attractive, and it should leave most customers ready (if not exactly roaring) for a second helping.

Papa in real life was the papa of an old-time cinemama, Corinne Griffith, who wrote a book about him back in 1952. As the film describes it, life with Papa is one damn fling after another. Not that Papa is a drunk. But he is almost always in a "delicate condition,'' and when he is in a delicate condition he is apt to do any tomfool thing that happens to cross his mind. One morning, sick of looking at a neighbor's purple house, Papa grabs a ladder and--splat! the neighbor's house is painted white. One afternoon, annoyed when a drugstore proprietor bullies the errand boy, Papa yanks out his checkbook, buys the store, makes the errand boy the boss and the boss the errand boy. And one fine day, when his daughter falls in love with a circus pony, Papa promises he will buy it and he does--even though he has to buy the circus too.

And what does Mama (Glynis Johns) think of that? Don't worry. Faced with a choice between love and liquor, Papa gives up the hard sauce and at the happy-family fade decides he'll take vanilla.

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