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18 out of 26 people found the following review useful: Unfocused Remake of Lady for a Day., 20 April 2005 Author: nycritic
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
For a director who made some of the most memorable, high-quality films between 1933 and 1941 and has become legendary for his priceless, classic IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES is a little too unfocused and cute at times to merit being a great film. While his earlier version, LADY FOR A DAY, was more compact, this one runs 40 minutes too long, extends scenes that could have trimmed the fat off the plotting and still have had the film look great, and seems too fairy-tale even for 1961 when it was released. Somehow what worked so well in the 30s fails to work here, and while the acting couldn't be better from many of the actors involved, the storyboarding itself is sub-par. Bette Davis shines as Apple Annie, though, and makes this escapist film worth watching even when its subject matter has not aged well and seems like a caricature of its earlier version.
16 out of 23 people found the following review useful: Pocketful of Wonderful Miracles ****, 16 January 2006 Author: edwagreen from United States
Glenn Ford and the late Hope Lange in a comedy with Bette Davis taking a supporting role. Interesting enough, this crowd pleaser works quite well.Dave The Dude (Ford) is a gangster on the verge of making a big deal. Dave is superstitious. He always must get an apple from that vagrant-looking Davis.Davis, as Apple Annie, was phenomenal in this film. She acts just like an old broken down bag-lady. She does it with a finesse. (Is it really possible to have a refined bag-lady, you bet it is.)Anyway, it appears that Davis has a daughter living abroad all these years. Ann-Margret is she and the latter thinks that her mother is high society. Trouble now is that Ann is getting engaged to a count and they're coming to New York to look mom over. Dave and his girlfriend, Lange, fix up Davis to make her look like a dowager. They even provide a husband for her-Thomas Mitchell!As if this isn't funny enough, we have Peter Falk, in a truly worthy Oscar nominated supporting performance, as Dave's sidekick who can't fathom what is going on.Edward Everett Horton is the butler who can't take bad endings. Fortunately, for him, the film has anything but that kind of ending. It's up-beat down to the last laugh.When "the kids" sail away, Apple Annie resorts to her old ways by even announcing that her prices have gone up to her faithful friends.A romp and memorable film.
15 out of 23 people found the following review useful: A Wonderful Fairy Tale, 10 February 2004 Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Apple Annie (Bete Davis) is an alcoholic beggar who sells apples and controls the beggary in Broadway area. Dave the Dude Conway (Glenn Ford) is a prominent gangster, who believes that Annie's apples are magic and brings `good luck' to him. Elizabeth 'Queenie' Martin (Hope Lange) is his lover, and she wants to get married with him and move to Maryland, to have children. One day, Annie receives a letter from her daughter Louise (Ann Margret, making her debut on the screens), who lives in Spain. She informs that she is going to get married with the son of a Count, and her future father-in-law is coming to New York with them to visit her. Annie becomes desperate and Dude decides to help her, pretending she is from the high-society of New York. This is another wonderful Frank Capra's magic movie. Indeed, it is a fairy tale. The cast, direction and screenplay are delightful and although being talkative and long, it is such a good film that the viewer does not feel the time passing. Bete Davis has another outstanding performance, as usual, very well supported by the magnificent cast. Highly recommended as a family entertainment. My vote is nine.Title (Brazil): `Dama Por Um Dia' (`Lady For a Day')
10 out of 14 people found the following review useful: Capra Remakes Himself, 1 January 2008 Author: giorgiosurbani from Italy
With "Pockeful Of Miracles" Frank Capra remakes his own "Lady For A Day" with Capraseque results - that means a mix bag with mostly delightful stuff in it - The major problem here is Glenn Ford, not as an actor but as a producer. There is too much dedicated to Ford's character's businesses, moving away from what really matters - Apple Annie and her predicament. Bette Davis was one of the major supporters of Glenn Ford at the beginning of his career - A Stolen Life, did for his career what "Thelma and Louise" did for Brad Pitt's and one should remember that Davis sort of "imposed" Ford for that role. Now Glenn Ford bills himself above Bette Davis. That should tell you something. The film, however, more than survives the petty egos and comes out as a wonderful swan song for the extraordinary Frank Capra. Bette Davis herself confessed to have found enormous difficulty at being faithful to Apple Annie in those gorgeous gowns post-makeover, but this is, was and always will be a fairy tale and as such it succeeds beautifully. The entrance of Davis after the make-over scored with the Nutcracker suite, it's one of my most cherished movie memories as are Davis's eyes as she witnesses the "miracle" in first person. A collection of wonderful character actors: Thomas Mitchell, Ellen Corby and in particular Edward Everett Horton makes the whole thing a smashing pleasure. Beautiful Hope Lange is terrific and Peter Falk wears a coat that makes his character a shady relative of his future "Colombo". If you're not made of stone and/or your levels of cynicism have not reached inhuman stages, you're going to enjoy this very much. I certainly did.
6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: "The World's A Bright And Shiny Apple That's Mine, All Mine.", 29 April 2007 Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York
Frank Capra got out of the directing feature film business right after Pocketful of Miracles, creating a symmetry of sorts in his career because this is a remake of Lady for a Day, his first film to garner any kind of award nominations. He felt that it was a mistake going into partnership with a star, in this case Glenn Ford because it meant yielding creative control of the product. You never know what you get with collaborative efforts. It could be something like Gone With The Wind or Mister Roberts. Or it could be something as disastrous as Desire Me (go check my user comments on that one). Pocketful of Miracles falls somewhere in the middle of that. I still remember seeing it and enjoying it as a lad.Originally Frank Capra wanted to do Pocketful of Miracles with Frank Sinatra with whom he had done good work in A Hole in the Head. Sinatra proved unavailable except to record the title song for a best selling record with a kid's choir. Lady for a Day back in 1933 boasted the performance of May Robson as the disheveled Apple Annie who has the secret daughter in a convent school in Spain. All the panhandlers and street grifters chip in and support the girl who's about to marry into nobility. But she wants to visit her mother before the vows are taken. She thinks Robson is a society matron.Stepping in and doing more than an adequate job in the remake is Bette Davis. Capra did put a curb on the Davis grand manner during her scenes as the apple seller in Depression era New York. And he gave her free reign as society matron, Mrs. Worthington Manley.Robson got an Academy Award nomination for Lady for a Day. Pocketful of Miracles boasts an acting nomination itself in the Supporting Actor category. In this case for Peter Falk as Glenn Ford's second in command in his gang. Capra had nothing but praise for Falk as an actor in his memoirs. I agree, the man's range is astonishing, he's capable of a lot more than Lieutenant Columbo.Capra gathered his usual outstanding group of identifiable supporting players including a few who've seen service with him before. This film marked the farewell performance of Thomas Mitchell who graced so many classic films for Frank Capra and others. He's wonderful as the smooth talking pool shark that Ford drafts into being Davis's husband.One career ends, another begins; this was the debut film for Ann-Margret playing Davis's daughter. She even gets to sing to her intended, a rather stiff young actor named Peter Mann of whom little was heard after this. Both were given billing as being introduced in Pocketful of Miracles.Both Lady for a Day and Pocketful of Miracles were based on a Damon Runyon short story and Runyon certainly lavished love on the Broadway characters he created. One of the problems I've always had with both versions of this story is that for all everyone's good intentions which surprise everyone, a fraud is being perpetrated here. Will there be a happily ever after ending when it's discovered? I guess the moral of the story is that if you get enough VIPs involved in the fraud it's OK. That's not a great lesson to learn.But when written by Damon Runyon and directed by Frank Capra it's not something we think about too much.
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful: pretty good, 10 February 2004 Author: kyle_furr
A remake of Capra's own lady for a lady, made in 33. This stars Bette Davis as a panhandler who's daughter thinks she's rich and famous and Glenn Ford is a gangster friend of Davis who helps her out, despite his own troubles. Glenn Ford and Bette Davis are both good and Peter Falk was nominated for best supporting actor. This was Frank Capra's and Thomas Mitchell's last film, whom the latter died of cancer a year later.
11 out of 17 people found the following review useful: Bette Davis Stars as Ann Margaret's Misfit Mother, 15 September 2007 Author: Kennedy63 from United States
Apple Annie (Bette Davis) makes her living as a gin-sauced, basket-carrying, apple-selling NYC street woman. This motion picture is in color which makes Davis's famous facial expressions, especially her eyes, all the more effective.The people Apple Annie hangs out with are other street vendors who are social misfits of various sorts; but, they have one thing in common: poverty.Apple Annie is well connected with a mobster known as The Dude. Fortunately, he's superstitious. The tough mobster (Glen Ford) believes Apple Annie's apples bring him daily good luck because she says, "God Bless You," to everyone who buys from her.All along Apple Annie's been writing her daughter on stationary from an upper-crusty city apartment complex, in order to pretend that she's a well-to-do lady. When her daughter, Louise (Ann Margaret, in her film debut) writes that she's coming to the city with her potential fiancé', whose father is a Spanish count, Apple Annie's pretense is not only about to be exposed but it could ruin her only child's chance for marrying well enough so that she'll never live in poverty as her mother has.The rest of the story is fabulous: humorous, ingenious, well-casted, scripted and acted. It's anything but a typical mob story.For me, the priceless scenes are between the veteran actor Bette Davis and upstart Ann Margaret. Imagine being able to claim that in your first film you starred as Bette Davis's daughter? Margaret gives a fine first film performance face-to-face with the Queen of the Screen. Peter Faulk does his mobster version of "Columbo," in top form. Davis, in Technicolor, delivers one of the most realistic, heart-felt, truly dramatic metamorphosis characters I've seen.
7 out of 11 people found the following review useful: Frank Capra Ends His Career In Style, 27 December 2005 Author: Hal-900 from WA, USA
In the peculiar tradition of directors that choose to revisit their own material, Frank Capra remakes his early hit "Lady for a Day". I'm probably at odds with the critical mass when I say that I actually prefer this 1961 production over Capra's 1930s comedy-drama. The 1933 movie struck as being too slow and unfunny. May Robson's Apple Annie was that film's brightest element, but the remake is a class A picture filled with plenty of goodies. Bette Davis takes over the Apple Annie role, and while she is miscast (Davis was never very good with passive roles), she is very, very effective in a role originally intended for Helen Hayes. The rest of the cast is extraordinary. Glen Ford is excellent as "The Dude", Hope Lange is enchanting as "Queenie", and Peter Falk (Oscar-nominated), Edward Everret Horton, and Thomas Mitchell (in his last movie role) have some of the best lines in the film. Anne-Margret makes her film debut as Davis' daughter. It's a modern fairy tale, so one has to ignore a few plot contrivances (the ending never addresses some moral considerations), but it is a sweet, very funny movie with great production values. The film needs to be seen on widescreen to be fully appreciated, though. If you have gotten tired of watching "It's A Wonderful Life" every Christmas, this film is a nice alternative.
8 out of 13 people found the following review useful: very good but not up to the quality of the original, 28 March 2006 Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida
This Frank Capra directed film is actually Capra's second attempt with the movie. POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES is actually a remake of LADY FOR A DAY (1933), and I've got to say that nothing in this remake made me favor it over the original. May Robson and Warren William just did a better job with the material than Bette Davis and Glenn Ford. In particular, Ford is more selfish and nasty when compared to the "nice" scoundrel played more gracefully by William. Plus, overall, it looks like everyone just tried and emoted too much in the remake. The original was slow and graceful and also quite beautiful. The remake is just LOUDER and brash--like it is a "dumbed-down" version of the original.However, despite my complaint, the basic story itself is still excellent and couldn't help but produce a good movie. This one is sure worth watching, but if at all possible, find LADY FOR A DAY--it's a much better example of the magic of Frank Capra.
4 out of 6 people found the following review useful: An pleasing and charming movie, 4 June 2004 Author: ma-cortes from Santander Spain
The film centers about Bette Davis , an old,ugly and poor woman on his own resources, she splits luck to a mobster played by Glenn Ford giving him apples.Ford helps her and he sets up a masquerade for her daughter which goes to marry -Anna Margret- to a high class man and for him to believe than Bette is a countess.In the film there is a mingle of comedy , drama and humor , it's a very bemusing movie.First range acting ,especially by principal actors: Davis, Ford , Hope Lange, Peter Falk,Anne Margret but the secondaries actors are also excellent : Edward Everett Horton, Thomas Mitchell,Arthur O'Connell , among others . Direction by Frank Capra is very good ,he had lots of experience because of his previous classics films.Rating : 7 ,above average
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