It Happens Every Thursday (1953) User Reviews

A family's love and struggle with their small town paper

[SimonJack · 7/10 · 27 July 2018]

Most newspaper men and women who worked in the 20th century would probably be quick to catch the title of this film. "It Happens Every Thursday" refers to the getting out of a weekly newspaper. Even well into the 21st century, the U.S. alone had some 7,000 non-daily newspapers. Most of these are weekly, although a few publish two or three times per week.

At one time around the middle of the 20th century, it was common for harried news reporters on big city papers to dream about having their own small town weekly paper where they could settle down and raise their family in peace. Or, so the dream life seemed. This movie gives a good look at what that life could really be like.

Loretta Young and John Forsythe star as the couple who take their family from the big city to a small town to own and run their own paper. The film shows the challenges of running a small town paper, and of new owners struggling to make it work.

In this case, a strong love between the couple, and their growing family, add to a plot that mixes some comedy with drama. The film has a fine supporting cast. It's an enjoyable film that's suitable for the whole family. However, some modern audiences may find it slow.

Here are a couple favorite lines from the film.

Jane MacAvoy, "And Mrs. Spatch." Mrs. Eva Spatch, "Huh?" Jane, "I don't know what I would've done without you." Mrs. Spatch, "Ah, child. You see, the trouble with you is you were raised in a big city. You wanted something; you just called up and got it. Well, around here there's not so many of us. So, whoever can, does."

Bob MacAvoy and Jane pass each other as he rushes out to lead a Boy Scout meeting. Bob says, "I love you." Jane MacAvoy, "Scout's honor?" Bob, holding up three fingers, "Scout's honor."

Slight Pleasantness to These Happenings

[daoldiges · 6/10 · 16 July 2022]

Loretta Young and John Forsythe both do fine work here, as does the entire supporting cast, all of which are very good really. The basic story is solid enough too, but the script just isn't funny or witty enough to create the humor and engagement intended. As such the overall effect is a bit flat. Still there are enough moments in It Happens Every Thursday to check it out if your interested/curious.

Small town news

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 14 September 2020]

In Loretta Young's final big screen film there are so many familiar and wonderful character players you would think this came from Frank Capra. A few in It Happens Every Spring are Capra veterans.

Loretta and her husband John Forsythe are newspaper people and they work at different papers on different shifts. It's quite a pressure filled atmosphere so Forsythe and Young decide to use their savings and buy a small town weekly newspaper.

The usual problems of city folk adjusting to small town living and small town news stories are in her. The biggest item on people's minds is the drought the community is suffering. Forsythe tries to do something about it and ends up in a public relations jackpot.

This is a pleasant piece of entertainment so reminiscent of some of the Frank Capra classics. Young picked a good one as her farewell to the big screen.

A Great Little Film!

[YoPec · 18 February 2003]

This is a charming film made back when films could be made just to be charming. It is the story of a big city couple that move to a small town to run the little weekly paper there. They find that their big city way of thinking can get them in trouble with small town minds and mores! I especially liked their photo file; when they wanted a picture of an arrogant citizen the only one on file was of him as a baby-naked on a bearskin rug! This film is another that I would love to see restored and made available on DVD.

Pleasant Programmer With Fine Supporting Cast

[boblipton · 6/10 · 2 July 2021]

John Forsythe, pregnant wife Loretta Young, and their son leave New York and his newspaper grind to take over a small town newspaper in California. There they struggle with small circulation, bad finances and a suspicious local crowd.

It's an innocuous, light-hearted drama that breaks no new ground, one of the utterly banal near-comedies of the era. Where it excels is in its wealth of supporting actors, including Edgar Buchanan as yet another big-hearted printer, Jimmy Conlin, Frank McHugh, Jane Darwell, Gladys George, Regis Toomey, and even Francis Ford in his next-to-last movie.

Better known as John Ford's brother, Francis had started out in movies as part of the Melies company in Texas doing cowboy pictures. By 1915, he and Grace Cunard were major players on the Universal lot, doing serials, adventure pictures, often with Ford directing. When brother John came out west, Francis got him work on the lot. Ford continued as a supporting player through the 1930s, but eventually was reduced to bits in his brother's pictures. In all, he made almost five hundred shorts and features as a performer, 180 as a director. He died the year this picture came out, aged 72.

End of an era!

[Patrick-96 · 4/10 · 28 September 2000]

This film is significant in motion picture history for two reasons. The first is that it is the final feature film appearance of Loretta Young. After this, Loretta only made television appearances. The second is that this is the last film ever made by Gladys George, who died the next year (1954).

Delightful look at serious problems of small-town paper

[morrisonhimself · 9/10 · 12 August 2019]

As a long-time and former journalist, I was hooked early when a character bought a copy of the magazine "Editor & Publisher," the bible of the newspaper industry -- or it was then. And was into the many years of my being in the industry. (I even wrote an article for it.) But it might not even exist now, since newspapers themselves are dying like the proverbial flies, or cutting days of publication from seven to as few as three.

What the magazine-buying character found was an ad selling a small-town weekly, the owning of which, at one time, was many a journalist's dream.

And, for some, maybe for many, the dream still exists, although it is probably more difficult now to make a living with such a publication.

Many of the difficulties shown in this movie are drawn from real life. People will not subscribe. People will not advertise.

But they by gosh expect to have their stories covered, their clubs, their sewing circles, their engagements and weddings, their schools, their churches. "And be sure to spell my name right this time: It's 'D-O-W.' With a 'D' and not a 'C.' "

(I once misspelled "Raul" as "Raoul," French vs. the correct Spanish. First rule: ASK the spelling, especially names.)

When a farmer complained about no coverage for the drought, he expressed a valid complaint. With an almost non-existent staff, a paper might not be able to cover much outside the nearest neighborhoods around the paper's office.

The editor's response here is rather extreme, even for California, and takes the story out of the mundane.

The cast in this Universal Picture is top of the line, and they are handed some excellent well-written dialogue.

I highly recommend "It Happens Every Thursday," a very good copy of which is available at YouTube.

Slight but enjoyable.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 3 August 2016]

"It Happens Every Thursday" is a pleasant but undistinguished film. It's a shame, as it turned out to be Loretta Young's last movie and after a long career, you would have hoped it would have ended on a higher note than this.

The set-up for this film makes no sense...though it certainly isn't without precedent. Much like in films like "George Washington Slept Here", "The Egg and I" and "Mr. Blandings Builds a Dreamhouse", the film is about some city folk giving up everything and moving to the country. However, compared to the boobs in these other films, the characters in "It Happens Every Thursday" seem to have a lot less motivation and their move is much more inexplicable. Think about it....two New Yorkers with no experience in the newspaper business use all their savings to buy a tiny paper in a tiny country town. Why? Well, we really have no idea--and this is the biggest weakness of the film.

Fortunately, apart from this HUGE plot hole, the rest of the picture is pleasant and modestly entertaining as the couple (John Forsythe and Young) try their darnedest to make a go of it. It's less a comedy...and more a slice of life. The actors in this (and the supporting cast is quite good) try their best but the picture never really rises above mediocrity.

Sheer escapism

[rick_7 · 11 June 2010]

Loretta Young, the toothy, huge-eyed leading lady, was known in Hollywood as "Attila the Nun", due to her evangelical Catholic faith (which extended to introducing a swear jar on set, something I'll have to implement at work) and iron will. She may have been voted the Hollywood Women's Press Club's most cooperative actress of 1950 (Bob Mitchum scooped their least cooperative actor gong), but then she always was a sassy self-publicist. Still, despite all that, and the bad press she's had in recent years for the whole Judy Lewis affair, she remains an attractive performer: ethereal and appealing in those early years, then a fitting screen mother as her fascinating looks ebbed away.

It Happens Every Thursday was her final film and it's a charming piece of Americana: something like the gentle cousin of Sam Fuller's Park Row, with a showy role for Young as the archetypal supportive wife – stoic, resourceful and loyal. John Forsythe is a New York newspaperman who buys his own small-town 'paper – the Eden Chronicle – and finds it's going to need a bit of work. The relationship between Forsythe and screen wife Young is smartly written and delightfully played, and the difficulties they face are nicely realised. The familiar baddie in such movies, a hateful, sniping little gossip gleefully ruining lives, is usually a harridan, but here you get a fey wannabe adulterer, played by Willard Wateman. The rest of the supporting cast is pretty much terrific, featuring the greatest character comic of them all, Frank McHugh, alongside Preston Sturges regular Jimmy Conlin and round-faced Edgar Buchanan, who's excellent in a surprisingly deep role. Best of all is the magnificent Gladys George (also appearing on the big screen for the final time), the most sympathetic brothel owner in '50s cinema. This blend of Johnny Come Lately and Mr Blandings could have seemed stale, but thanks to good scripting, pleasant plotting and lovely acting, it turns out just great.

Disappointingly flat

[m_finebesser · 5/10 · 22 August 2001]

It Happens Every Thursday seems to have all the elements in place for a classic comedy along the lines of "The Egg And I." Urbanites Forsythe and Young take over a newspaper in a small town, then get involved in a local scandal of sorts. Forsythe, the handsome urban sophisticate should be perfect for the part, but his lines come off forced. And, he has no chemistry with Loretta Young at all. A few of the gags work well, but most fall tediously flat. Given the presence of Frank McHugh, Edgar Buchanan, Gladys George and others in a marvelous supporting cast, the results are very disappointing.

Talk about the jollyfied 50's, gosh I feel bad I didn't come up in this era...

[juanmuscle · 10/10 · 8 March 2019]

When things really were akin to 'It's a Wonderful Life!' Here it is almost just a good warm and wholesome feeling that evokes nothing but more goodness inly that is!

Even the characters , I don't know how they did it but almost everyone in this set irradiates goodness!

I just totally completely fell in love with this film and the ending was wonderful, there is something really cool and classic about these black & white's! They just , I don't know, make me want to stoke the fire and drink hot chocolate and pet a big scruffy shaggy dog sprawled out on the hearthrug and oh! eat some cheesecake? or apple pie even though its not time for the next repast! Gosh this was a nice!

And golly that lead actess, boy can she instill hope right? Talk about a good person, I mean good character , everyone in here is jolly nice!

P.S. its on youtube no less! :)

Moderately engaging situation comedy and drama

[weezeralfalfa · 5/10 · 3 May 2017]

So, what happens every Thursday? That's the day the little weekly newspaper Archive is printed and delivered in and around the small CA town of Eden, provided the printing press is working. Bob (John Forsythe) and Jane(Loretta Young)recently bought this newspaper, after having moved from NYC, where they worked different shifts, so that they seldom saw each other awake during the week. They hoped this small town would live up to its name for them. But, they discovered that surviving on a small circulation weekly newspaper required much work and thought, and a larger circulation. How to achieve this last goal? They realized that , being new to the community, they needed to join some community and civic organizations to make contacts with as many people as possible as potential news and advertisement sources as well as customers. They held various raffles and contests, including recognizing some old residents and landmarks. They also began writing articles of interest to farmers, who were currently suffering a severe drought. Bob investigated the possibility of cloud seeding, using dry ice. When he saw promising clouds arriving, he got in a small plane and was about to disperse the ice when it started to pour. Initially Bob was happy to take credit for the rain, but the rain continued for days, and caused extensive damage in the town. Unbelievably, people wanted to sue him for causing so much rain! He then retracted his claim that his cloud seeding was responsible for the excess rain. As a result of this debacle, Bob and Jane decided to throw in the towel, to sell the newspaper and return to their former jobs in NYC. But, of course, there has to be a happy ending, and you might see the film to discover it. It's available on YouTube.

Loretta, with her extraordinary beauty and overflowing motherly persona, has to pretty much carry this slight situation comedy: her last feature film, not to denigrate her costar and supporting actors. For those of us who work for governments or private companies, it reminds us how difficult and chancy is the effort to start a new profitable business with minimal funding and an inherently limited customer base, especially in an unfamiliar social environment

Still think About It

[richard.fuller1 · 8/10 · 20 January 2013]

In the 70s in my neck of the woods, old black and whites would air in the mornings and this one movie about a couple running a newspaper and a series of events, such as running an old photograph and letting people guess who it was (an old baby pic was run and finally an elderly figure spied it and simply stated 'thats me as a wee babe'. The contest seemed to hit a snag when the home of an eccentric recluse or something was published) and then all the captivating events of making it rain. They promised they would! When the husband took off in a plane to drop dry ice into the clouds to produce rain, but it rained without the ice being dropped, this seemed to be the pinnacle of the movie.

The couple running the newspaper kept getting on the town's bad side, or controversy would erupt.

I had to ask what movie this was and was finally told it was Loretta Young and John Forsythe.

I thought I already had a review for this one, but I guess not.

Would love to see it again.