Annie Was a Wonder

Kathleen Freeman plays Anna, a Swedish immigrant who worked as a housekeeper for John Nesbitt's family in the long ago days. It's from the last year of MGM THE PASSING PARADE, a series that Nesbitt had been performing, on radio, in the movies, and later on television, since the middle of the 1930s.

It's a story of America, with the foreigner of today becoming the solid American several decades later.

It's a rebuke to the know-nothing, anti-Foreign impulse that so often afflicts people. I speak from experience. My paternal grandparents came from Europe about a century ago, finding work as, respectively, a hat maker and a scrub woman.

Annie Was a Wonder (1949)

** (out of 4)

Oscar-nominated short from John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series. Nesbitt narrates the story of Annie (Kathleen Freeman), a Swedish woman who came to American to work as a maid. She's almost fired on her first day but the father of the family falls in love with her cooking and keeps her on. This here leads to a close relationship between the family and their maid. This is a decent short but there's really nothing here to make it worth seeking out, although if you've got ten minutes to kill and spot it on Turner Classic Movies then you mind find it as mild entertainment. Freeman gives a pretty good performance but the film never really allows her to take shape and deliver what we need and that was some sort of character movement. The narration is decent but there's just not enough here to keep it going even through its short running time.

This one reel short subject was the debut of beloved character actress Kathleen Freeman in which she plays Swedish immigrant Annie, who hires out as domestic help for what we would consider really pittance wages of $15.00 a week. For that she put in an 84 hour work week. It's bad enough, but you also have to remember she's live in help as well and her room and board are free.

As Annie, all the brassiness that characterized Kathleen Freeman's screen persona is all there. The charm is there too as she wins her place in the affections of the family that hired her. Her good Swedish cooking helps in that department.

Kathleen Freeman worked steady on the big and small screen from this point on right up to her death in 2001. I'm not sure she ever starred in anything other than this short subject from John Nesbitt's Passing Parade Series. Yet this particular short was an Oscar winner in 1948 and the reason for it is Kathleen Freeman.

She went places and we the audience are all the better for it.

One of the many one reel films that Turner Classic Movies is prone to show in between full-length films, ANNIE WAS A WONDER is one of the many shorts narrated by John Nesbitt featuring the film debut of Kathleen Freeman, best known for her much later movie and TV career even though she acted all throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s. She plays Swedish immigrant Annie Svenson who comes to the US and works a maid for an affluent family, and slowly forges a life of her own while retaining her own identity as a person. This is a simple production which manages to convey a cute clash of a foreign culture with Americana with essentially apt performances.

I quite enjoyed this jolly depiction of the narrator's young life with Swedish housekeeper Annie (Kathleen Freeman). Right from day one, she isn't about to be played pranks upon by the brothers, but by joining in their hosepipe game risks a swift termination of her fortnight's trial. Luckily, she came top of the class at her cookery school and anyone who has ever tasted Swedish cuisine will know that when it is done well it is certainly not one for the calorie counter. Studying for her citizenship qualification and befriending the local delivery man she spends the next few years gradually becoming an integral part of a family that worked her to the bone, but clearly cared a lot for her too. Freeman is clearly enjoying her role here and though perhaps the Nesbitt's might genuinely want to feel some guilt for their exploitation for $15 a month, it's one of the cheerier stories of the American dream working out for someone conflicted between her homeland of old and her new land of opportunity.