Dorothy McGuire stars as Jane Morgan, a commercial jingle writer. When Jane falls ill with the common cold, she makes an appointment with Dr. William "Bill" Wright (played by William Lundigan). The two immediately hit it off and strike up a romance, quickly leading to marriage. While both Jane and Bill are in love with each other, Jane ignores the warnings from both friends and her future mother-in-law, the meddling Mrs. Wright (played by Jessie Royce Landis), that being a doctor's wife is quite difficult with the unpredictability of patient illnesses and the subsequent demands of always being on duty. Jane soon realizes those demands, coupled with raising twins and Bill's professional partnership and friendship with Maggie Roberts (played by June Havoc), are perhaps too much for her to handle.
Mother Didn't Tell Me came seven years after Dorothy McGuire's on-screen debut in the film Claudia (1943), where she played a young, naïve wife who is skittish when it comes to the affairs of the bedroom. Following the success of that debut performance, McGuire was a rising star for 20th Century-Fox, with the studio casting her in the romantic drama The Enchanted Cottage (1945), reuniting her with her Claudia co-star Robert Young (she would work with Young twice more throughout her career; first in the sequel Claudia and David in 1946 and 32 years later in the television mini-series Little Women in 1978); Elia Kazan's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945); The Spiral Staircase (1945) and Gentleman's Agreement (1947), which earned her the only Academy Award nomination of her career. Following her critically-acclaimed performance in Gentleman's Agreement, McGuire turned down several projects, including the lead in 1946's Anna and the King of Siam (a role that eventually went to Irene Dunne), so that she could spend time with her family and focus on returning to the stage, where she had originally gotten her start. During this time, McGuire also worked with her Gentleman's Agreement co-star Gregory Peck to form the famed La Jolla Playhouse, starring in several productions there. And while Mother Didn't Tell Me marked McGuire's return to the big screen, it wasn't quite the return she had hoped for as the film was a flop at the box office. However, McGuire had a successful comeback in a series of strong, matronly roles in films such as Friendly Persuasion (1956); A Summer Place (1959) and Swiss Family Robinson (1960).
Director Claude Binyon got his start as a journalist in Chicago, later transitioning to entertainment reporting for Variety throughout the 1920s. By the early 1930s, Binyon ditched his journalism job to become a screenwriter at Paramount Studios, penning the scripts for films such as The Gilded Lily (1935) and True Confession (1937), embarking on a long, multi-film collaboration with director Wesley Ruggles. By 1948, Binyon made his directorial debut with The Saxon Charm, directing six more feature-length films in the years that followed (many of which he also wrote the screenplays for), including Mother Didn't Tell Me and Stella (1950), starring Ann Sheridan and Victor Mature. Binyon's final screenplay was for 1964's Kisses for My President, starring Fred MacMurray and Polly Bergen.
Director: Claude Binyon
Producer: Fred Kohlmar
Screenplay: Claude Binyon
Cinematography: Joseph LaShelle
Editing: Harmon Jones
Music: Cyril J. Mockridge
Art Direction: Richard Irvine and Lyle R. Wheeler
Costume Design: Travilla
Cast: Dorothy McGuire (Jane Morgan), William Lundigan (Dr. William Wright), June Havoc (Maggie Roberts), Gary Merrill (Dr. Peter Roberts), Jessie Royce Landis (Mrs. Wright), Joyce Mackenzie (Helen Porter) and Leif Erickson (Dr. Bruce Gordon).
BW-88m
Resources: https://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film680128.html https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6b0d415f https://josephinereadersadvisory.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/the-doctor-wears-three-faces-by-mary-bard/
By Jill Blake
