On Borrowed Time │ Warner Archive Collection
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment
by CHAD KENNERK
Released in 1939, the golden year that also delivered such classics as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach, and Ninotchka, On Borrowed Time arrives pristine on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive Collection as a piece of welcome homespun Americana. The gentle, deceptively profound fantasy feels right at home among the output of that legendary Hollywood year.
Adapted from Paul Osborn’s hugely successful 1938 Broadway play (itself based on a novel by Lawrence Edward Watkin) and directed by Harold S. Bucquet, best known for shepherding much of MGM’s Dr. Kildare series, the film opens with a title card invoking Chaucer and insists that “faith still performs miracles, and a good deed does find its just reward.” The allusion is to The Canterbury Tales, specifically The Pardoner’s Tale, in which there is a confrontation with Death, a lineage that later extends to films like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Seventh Seal, and, in more recent years, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
In On Borrowed Time, Death is embodied by Mr Brink (Cedric Hardwicke), a dapper, courteous gentleman in the tradition of Death Takes a Holiday. When Mr Brink claims Pud’s parents, his stubborn grandfather ‘Gramps’ (Lionel Barrymore) makes a wish that immobilises death itself. Barrymore’s Gramps is a warm, rumpled soul whose folksy wisdom and salty turn of phrase (significantly toned down from the play thanks to the Hays Code) gives the story its comic snap. His nickname for meddling Aunt Demetria, ‘pismire’ (in other words ‘pissant’), deserves a resurrection, as does the euphemism “Well, I’ll be dipped in gravy.” Gramp's relationship with his grandson Pud forges the emotional core of the story, thanks in large part to the exceptional performance of young Bobs Watson.
Part of the so-called ‘first family of Hollywood’, Watson was one of nine children, all of whom were child actors. Watson was familiar to audiences as Pee Wee from the Spencer Tracy classic Boys Town, but his tearful, unguarded work here reveals a deeper emotional range. Incidentally, the off-screen bond between Watson and Tracy lasted until Tracy’s death (Watson was reportedly his last visitor.) Watson later left acting to attend Claremont School of Theology and become a Methodist minister, a move inspired by the moral pull of working on Boys Town, which also feels in keeping with the spiritual undercurrents of On Borrowed Time.
The cast is dotted with familiar pleasures, including a brief appearance by a very young Hans Conried — later immortalised as Captain Hook in Disney’s Peter Pan — as a driver briefly considered by Mr Brink. Thematically, On Borrowed Time anticipates some of what was later explored in the 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life, a kinship underscored by the presence of Lionel Barrymore, Henry Travers, and Beulah Bondi — who all appear in both films.
Warner Archive’s Blu-ray presentation is scanned in 4K from surviving fine-grain master positives, generating a clean image with natural grain and crisp detail. Two radio adaptations included as bonus features underscore the story’s ongoing popularity. They include a 1946 Screen Guild Theater broadcast featuring Barrymore alongside Agnes Moorehead and Vincent Price, and the 1948 Great Scenes From Great Plays presentation starring Boris Karloff, narrated for the Armed Forces Radio Service. Vintage shorts round out the package, including the anarchic MGM cartoon Wanted No Master, the last of two cartoons to feature Count Screwloose and J.R. the Wonder Dog. James A. FitzPatrick’s Technicolor Traveltalk A Day on Treasure Island adds a sunny slice of whimsy covering the man-made island in the San Francisco Bay, which was built for the 1939 World's Fair. Warner Archive’s restored release makes a persuasive case for On Borrowed Time as more than a curiosity from a legendary year. It asks us to believe, if only for 99 minutes, that death can be reasoned with, that kindness matters and that even the smallest life has weight. That kind of faith isn’t borrowed but earned.
On Borrowed Time is available on Blu-ray 16 December from Warner Archive Collection.
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WARNER ARCHIVE COLLECTION offers thousands of film and TV series direct from Warner’s studio vault. With a particular emphasis on high-quality restorations and remasters on Blu-ray disc, Warner Archive Collection brings rare and hard-to-find classic motion pictures and television series to home video. Often appearing for the first time on Blu-ray, titles are chosen each month from the unparalleled library of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which spans more than 100 years of cinema history.
