Watch Tenth Avenue Angel For Free

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Warm film with the usual top MGM production values, strong cast.When I finally saw this film I was surprised it was described as a "bomb" by Leonard Maltin. While it's not the greatest movie ever made, it's hardly a bomb, despite the problematic production history. Because retakes took so long, Margaret O'Brien is noticeably taller and older in some scenes than in others. The character's belief in fairy tales strains credulity in the scenes where little Margaret seems to be aging rapidly.One could argue, as well, that, despite the hardships supposedly being endured by the characters in their poor New York neighborhood, at the height of the Great Depression, they seem reasonably well fed, dressed, and housed. The apartment where Flavia (O'Brien) lives is quite large, for example.But there are some very true things in the film, the experience of being an only child, living among adults; the realities of readjustment for an ex-con (George Murphy). Many of the realities are not in the scenes or the lines, but in Margaret's and George Murphy's faces.The cast is great and there's a nice Christmas atmosphere in the scenes that wrap up the story.

Some reviews may note that the story between Flavia's Aunt (Angela Landsbury) and Steve is a "filler". I don't agree. Although clearly a sub-plot to the story about Flavia coming to terms with growing up and what to believe, the relationship between the Aunt and Steve is very pertinent to the story in that much of the drama is also about Steve, not just Flavia. The ending is very moving and the 4th of July speech delivered by Flavia is something you have to see to believe. I highly recommend this film, which is a tribute to films about real life. The problems faced by the characters are real life issues. Questions about faith, the nature of truth and lies, and how difficult it can be to get back on the right path.

Aptly described by Leonard Maltin as a BOMB is this mawkish tear-jerker from MGM, filmed in '46 but released in '48 and showcasing their popular moppet MARGARET O'BRIEN.O'Brien has the kind of role Shirley Temple had in the '30s. In fact, it's a Depression story that takes place in Hell's Kitchen of 1936 about a girl who learns some lessons about truth-telling that are pretty obvious.Let me put it this way--Margaret O'Brien is at her most Margaret O'Brien in this tale about a prim little girl who isn't told the truth about her aunt's sweetheart GEORGE MURPHY--supposedly returning from an around the world trip. In reality, he's returning from prison. But that angle of the story is as gritty as it gets. All the rest is so syrupy it's enough to make you diabetic by the time it reaches the Christmas theme ending.But let's face it--O'Brien had lost most of her appeal as a child star by the time she made this one and it bombed at the box-office, despite surrounding her with pros like ANGELA LANSBURY, PHYLLIS THAXTER, BARRY NELSON and others. This is one of her weakest vehicles and is best forgotten unless you're such a staunch fan that anything will do.

A second- or third-string feel-good movie trundled out perennially as the holidays draw nigh, Tenth Avenue Angel will charm or irritate viewers in proportion to their responses to Margaret O'Brien, who stays front and center throughout. Best known for stealing Meet Me in St. Louis away from Judy Garland, she was 11 years old at the time of this, her 17th film role, and her precocious tomboy routine was running on fumes. The story's set in the Depression year of 1936, in the shadow of the El in Hell's Kitchen, where O'Brien lives in proud poverty with her parents and aunt (Angela Lansbury). Lansbury's set to marry George Murphy, who's been `away;' O'Brien thinks he was in Australia, although he was doing a stretch up the river. Coming to learn the truth over the course of the movie, and in the process discarding other falsehoods foisted on childhood, ushers her from girlish innocence to the dawning of grown-up wisdom. It's that kind of movie.Not that there's anything wrong with that, but....In almost a counterrevolutionary movement against the cynical world-view of newly-hatched film noir, the late ‘40s also saw a spate of movies whose view of American family life was glacéed in sentimentality. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (which this movie resembles, with petty crime instead of alcoholism) was one; that canonized Christmas classic It's A Wonderful Life another. (I Remember Mama was the pick of the litter.) Struggling to make ends meet was gift-wrapped as ennobling, good for stiffening the backbone; hardship never bred discord or dysfunction. Maybe being poor once had its plus side, when most people were barely staying afloat in their small and leaky crafts. Or, if not, maybe the myth was necessary. At any rate, most of us will no doubt be finding out the truth for ourselves in very short order.