Reunion
Cast & Crew
Norman Taurog
The Dionne Quintuplets: Yvonne, Cecile, Marie, Annette, Emelie
Jean Hersholt
Rochelle Hudson
Helen Vinson
Slim Summerville
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Newspapers around the world proclaim the birth in Moosetown, Canada of the 3,000th baby brought into the world by the doctor known for delivering the famous Wyatt quintuplets, Dr. John Luke. To honor the doctor on his retirement and to publicize their town, the Moosetown chamber of commerce decides to hold a reunion of all the babies delivered by the doctor, some of whom have become famous, such as the first baby he delivered, Phillip Crandall, who is now a governor, and motion picture star Janet Fair. Phillip and his wife are childless, and Phillip is against adoption because he fears that his opponent in the upcoming election would suggest that the adopted baby was his from the past. He decides to go to the reunion to renew his friendship with Dr. Luke, whom he hasn't seen since a fishing trip twelve years earlier, before he was married. When Janet, who is down on her luck, learns from her agent that she has the lead in a New York show, she decides to accept the invitation to the reunion for the publicity she hopes it will bring. In Moosetown, the quintuplets' father, Asa Wyatt, is upset when his rival, Constable Jim Ogden, excitedly brags that his wife is due any minute to give birth to six babies because two fortune-tellers have told him so. When Jim's wife gives birth to one baby, Jim is disappointed at first, but as he plays with his new baby daughter, he tells her that he'd rather have her than six or sixty babies. After Dr. Luke's nephew Tony arrives from Toronto to take Dr. Luke's position, Tony receives a call from a woman in Toronto, which upsets nurse Mary McKenzie, Tony's sweetheart. Many of the thousands who come to the reunion throng around Janet, who is pleased to see her old friend, bachelor Charlie Renard. Phillip is attracted to an orphan named Rusty, whom Dr. Luke says was born eleven years ago to a woman who died of a broken heart. The mention of the woman's name greatly affects Phillip. Dr. Richard Sheridan and his wife Gloria then arrive from Toronto, and Gloria, the woman who called Tony, tells him that she plans to divorce Dick, a workaholic whom she no longer loves. When Dr. Luke, surmising the affair betweem Tony and Gloria, berates his son, Tony admits that he doesn't love Gloria. Although Dr. Luke pleads with him to end the affair, Tony refuses, feeling that he owes it to Gloria to carry on. When Dr. Luke tries to convince Gloria that Tony doesn't love her, but that he loves Mary, she becomes indignant. Dr. Luke then convinces her to freshen up in a bedroom and arranges for Mary to meet Tony in an adjoining room. When Dr. Luke makes Tony admit that an older woman has made a fool of him, Gloria overhears and leaves in an agitated state. Although Tony confesses that he loves Mary, she says she cannot love anyone who could turn his affections off and on at will. At the reunion gathering, Dr. Luke instructs Rusty to repeatedly make a gesture identical to one that Phillip makes. Won over by the boy, Phillip asks Dr. Luke about adoption formalities. When a telegram arrives from Janet's agent stating that the deal for the role in the New York play is off because the producer wants a younger woman, Janet, shaken, goes inside. The gathering then watch as the quintuplets arrive each in a pony-drawn carriage and play in a fenced-in enclosure. Dick tells Dr. Luke that he and Gloria, after a long talk, have decided to go abroad for a second honeymoon, and Gloria shakes Dr. Luke's hand. Dr. Luke then learns that Janet has shot herself. Tony takes charge of the operation with Mary as his assistant. After the operation, Tony tells Charlie that Janet will live if she has anything to live for. Charlie calls her by her real name, Mamie, and after he kisses her face, she takes his hand. Tony and Mary reconcile, and Dr. Luke's longtime nurse, Katherine Kennedy, mildly rebukes him for falsely making Phillip believe that he is Rusty's father.
Director
Norman Taurog
Cast
The Dionne Quintuplets: Yvonne, Cecile, Marie, Annette, Emelie
Jean Hersholt
Rochelle Hudson
Helen Vinson
Slim Summerville
Robert Kent
Dorothy Peterson
John Qualen
Alan Dinehart
J. Edward Bromberg
Sara Haden
Montagu Love
Tom Moore
George Ernest
Katherine Alexander
Esther Ralston
Julius Tannen
George Chandler
Edward Mcwade
Maude Eburne
Claudia Coleman
Hank Mann
Hattie Mcdaniel
Colonel Mcdonnell
A. S. "pop" Byron
Eddie Dunn
Henry Roquemore
Mary Maclaren
Mickey Rentschler
Buster Slaven
William Mahan
Adrian Rosley
Jim Toney
Crew
Joe Behm
Harry Brand
Earl Carroll
Daniel B. Clark
Dr. Allan R. Dafoe
Walter Ferris
W. D. Flick
Bruce Gould
Sam Hellman
Roger Heman
Ollie Hughes
Mark-lee Kirk
Gladys Lehman
Yvonne Leroux
Sonya Levien
Arthur Levy
Thomas Little
Jack Mintz
Jack Murray
Emil Newman
Jacqueline Noel
Ed O'fearna
Mollie O'shaughnessy
Bogart Rogers
Royer
Bill Russell
Frank Sullivan
Harold Wilson
Darryl F. Zanuck
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of this film was They Always Come Back. Actress Maude Eburne's surname is incorrectly spelled Eburn" in the onscreen credits. This was the second film featuring the Dionne Quintuplets. For information regarding the quintuplets, please see the above entry for their first film, The Country Doctor, a fictional account of their birth, which was released earlier in 1936. The screen credits note that, "Scenes of the Dionne Quintuplets were photographed at Callander, Ontario under the technical supervision of Dr. Allan R. Dafoe." Dr. Dafoe was the Canadian doctor who delivered the quintuplets on 28 May 1934.
According to the pressbook for the film, a company of eighty people from Twentieth Century-Fox arrived in Callander and began filming on August 17, 1936. The quints, who were two years and three months at the time, were filmed for twenty-six days, except Sundays, for one hour a day and were paid $83,000. A special blue filter for the lights which cameraman Daniel Clark developed for The Country Doctor was also used in this film. Helen Jerome Eddy was listed as a cast member in a Hollywood Reporter production chart, but her participation in the final film has not been confirmed.
