The Bachelor Father

Welcome home, Tony, Geoffrey and Maria... to a home and father you never knew. Ex-playboy Sir Basil Winterton has located the now-grown children he sired out of wedlock by different women and invited them to share the splendor of Rooksfold Manor. Psst! The cranky old man doesn't know (viewers do) that Tony isn't really his child. Top-billed Marion Davies's portrayal of unflappable flapper Tony is so central and appealing that this early comedy Talkie could aptly be called The Bachelor Father's Daughter. C. Aubrey Smith reprises his stage role as the stiff-upper-lipper whose uppercrust crust is softened by family. The source play is by Edward Childs Carpenter, whose "Connie Goes Home" inspired The Major and the Minor.

Edward Childs Carpenter's stock-company perennial BACHELOR FATHER was reshaped as a Marion Davies vehicle in 1931. Davies plays Tony Flagg, one of the three estranged grown children of aging roue Sir Basil Winterton (C. Aubrey Smith). Tony and her siblings Geoffrey Trent (Ray Milland) and Maria Credaro (Nena Quartero), were all born out of wedlock, each to a different mother. The premise finds Winterton reuniting with all of the children and becoming acquainted with each of them for the first time.