Bachelor Mother

Bachelor Mother (1939) is an American romantic comedy film directed by Garson Kanin, and starring Ginger Rogers, David Niven, and Charles Coburn. The screenplay was written by Norman Krasna from an Academy Award-nominated story by Felix Jackson (a.k.a. Felix Joachimson) written for the 1935 Austrian-Hungarian film Little Mother. With a plot full of mistaken identities, Bachelor Mother is a light-hearted treatment of the otherwise serious issues of child abandonment. It was remade in 1956 as Bundle of Joy, starring Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, and inspired the Bollywood film Kunwara Baap. Plot Polly Parrish (Ginger Rogers) is a salesgirl at the department store John B. Merlin and Son in New York City. Hired as temporary help for the Christmas season, she receives her dismissal notice as the season comes to a close. On her way home, she sees a stranger leaving a baby on the steps of an orphanage. Fearing exposure to the cold will harm the baby, Polly takes it inside. Polly is charmed by the baby, but shocked when the orphanage staff believe she is the mother and insist she can continue to care for her child with their help. She leaves the baby, but not before accidentally informing the staff where she works. The orphanage director searches out David Merlin (David Niven), the playboy son of the store's owner J.B. Merlin (Charles Coburn), and explains a woman abandoned her child because his store laid her off, requesting he re-hire her. David is sympathetic to the "unwed mother" and arranges for her to get her job back, with a permanent position and a raise, while promising a wonderful Christmas present will be delivered to her home later in the evening. The gift turns out to be the baby, delivered by the orphanage attendants.