Producer: Solomon M. Wurtzel. Copyright 20 December 1940 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. No New York opening. U.S. release: 20 December 1940. Australian release: 30 January 1941. 6,991 feet. 77½ minutes. Cut to 6,638 feet in Australia.
SYNOPSIS: Daughter-in-law (Gilmore) inspires her husband (Henry), brothers-in-law (Montgomery and Brooks) and sisters-in-law (Bowdon and Valerie) to revolt against their autocratic father (Stossel).
COMMENT: A good example of a major studio "B" movie that was particularly filmed with its target audience of American womenfolk firmly in mind. Its message was far less calculated to appeal to foreign audiences who would have found its freewheeling heroine at least faintly obnoxious.
Fox tried to scissor the most offensive passages in the Australian print (which runs a mite less than 74 minutes), but all they succeeded in doing was to make this straightened version even more tedious and dull. In contrast to his outspoken wife, husband Henry is too sookie for words.
SUMMING UP: You won't find Jennie in any of the books, though it certainly deserves a mention as a liberated feminist picture that managed to sneak out of a major studio's "B"-picture unit at least forty years ahead of its time. It went down like a lead balloon in wartime England and also failed to stir audiences in Australia, where it played briefly as a support in first-release cinemas in both Sydney and Melbourne before sinking without trace.
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