A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (film)

• Dorothy McGuire: Katie Nolan
• Peggy Ann Garner: Francie Nolan
• Joan Blondell: Sissy Edwards
• Lloyd Nolan: Officer McShane
• James Gleason: McGarrity
• Ted Donaldson: Neeley Nolan
• Ruth Nelson: Miss McDonough
• John Alexander: Steve Edwards
• B. S. Pully: Christmas tree supplier

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (English A Tree Grows in Brooklyn ) is the title of which won the Pulitzer Prize novel by Betty Smith in 1943, and the film adaptation of this novel as a debut work of director Elia Kazan in 1945. The film adaptation was won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as James Dunn (in the role of Johnny Nolan ) and a Juvenile Award ( in film history only twelve honorary Oscar award for young performers ) for Peggy Ann Garner (in the role of Francie Nolan ). In Germany the TV premiere was Christmas Eve on December 24, 1974.

The story describes the life of a family in Brooklyn in the early 20th century. Both in the novel and in the film the different characters are drawn very pointedly: the realistic, from life little expected mother Katie Nolan, the dreamy, visionary and loving, but often the alcohol zusprechende father Johnny Nolan, the ambitious daughter Francie (the actual main character ) that their ideals and goals enshrined in the harsh environment, her younger brother Neeley (a typical, sometimes a bit rougher year-old with the heart in the right place ) and Katie Nolan's fun-loving sister Sissy.

Action

Johnny Nolan works as a singing waiter, but can hardly get through with his odd jobs his family, which is why Katie Nolan contribute with plaster bodies and the children with various activities such as collecting scrap for maintenance. Katie and Johnny Nolan are in character rather strange, whereas there is a cordial relationship between Johnny and his daughter Francie Nolan. At Christmas time, after an intense harmonious conversation with Francis, Johnny Nolan tried to get a job, but ill in the cold streets of Brooklyn and dies. With toughness and not to besiegendem courage manages the Nolan family, yet continue.

Reviews

"From the human spirit embossed debut film of Elia Kazan, epic wide staged, convincing in milieu and character drawing and played well. "

Assessment

Both novel and movie giving an extremely dense and authentic mood of the poor man's life in Brooklyn during the first decades of the 20th century.

In the film, the scene is outstanding, in the Francis Nolan after the death of her father crying on the roof of the inhabited by the family apartment building - the New York City skyline in the background - is, talking to God and asks him that one day the mother of a can be boys, where her father lives.