On Borrowed Time (1939)

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Lionel Barrymore keeps the Grim Reaper at bay and up a tree in this film, "On Borrowed Time." Sir Cedric Hardwicke plays the gentleman who comes a calling when it's time for people to die. He tries to tell people it's a natural stage of life that's peaceful and is a release of pain; it's just a case of letting go. But old cantankerous Lionel ain't having any of it. He wants to stay here and raise his grandson, Pud, who lost his parents at the beginning of the movie. Some may call this film a charming fable with a tendency to be whimsical. But my history with this film is as follows: I saw this years ago in the late 1990s and don't remember liking it all that much. Feeling it needed another viewing, I saw it around Thanksgiving and had this reaction. It felt too dated to me. Granted, old people act old. But Lionel Barrymore seemed to overdo it, in my opinion. He always did have a tendency to ham things up a bit, along with his brother John. Plus, I think the writing had a lot to do with it. Had this been made in the last few decades, I don't think it would accentuated on his confounded exasperations all the time and wouldn't have kept calling people pismires. The film mired itself down with old-man eccentricities, making itself feel old. The predicament of the old man and boy only gets worse, despite the fact Lionel tricked Death into going up a tree. With Death up a tree, no one in the film could die. All at the hospital would be at death's door but not going any further. When Lionel convinced others that Death was up his tree, he was told people needed death. Some people want it, need it; it's a comfort to them. But cantankerous Lionel won't budge. Only when certain events happen, does he give in and the ending is far from happy. For such a family or holiday film as it may be purported to be, this certainly has a downbeat ending. All in all, one's enjoyment of this film depends entirely on the old man's grouchy disposition and his growl towards those around him. "On Borrowed Time" is a well-meaning but otherwise downbeat film that doesn't really fit in with other family films seen this holiday season or really for any time.

I have watched a lot of movies in my life but this movie have it all. It will make you laugh and cry, have your emotions racing as you watch. There is such a great love from a grandfather for his grandson in this movie, a love that the world should use for one another. As i sit and watched i was spell bound with the story line the things that took place in the world as death sit in that tree. Everyong pleading for this man to release death so he could his job. Grandfather knowing it that happen it would end the love and relationship he has with his grandson. The tree dying and world life going on without death. I could feel his pain and understand why he didn't want his life to end. It's just a hard reminder of me and the love i have for my grand-kids. This is a great movie, one of the best of all times.

When I first saw the film in 1981, I felt that I had just watched a classic. Enough has been written here to describe the plot line so I skip ahead to some of the reasons why this film was overlooked when it was released and why it continues to be overlooked today. First of all, it came out in 1939 which is probably the greatest year in Hollywood history. Such huge color releases like Wizard of OZ and Gone With The Wind made some smaller black and white films less appealing. The USA was still fighting the economic hangover from the great depression and the movie going public was spending it's money on more upbeat fare like Gunga Din and not on a movie that deals with death as it's main theme. And this leads to why, for me, the movie was really overlooked. It dealt with death and perhaps the world's political and economic condition doomed this movie to it's relative obscurity.

When I first watched this movie, I was expecting Lionel to be a mean old man, but he wasn't. He was a nice old man who loved his wife, his grandson, and hated Death.I loved Death, though. Not to be mean, but he was so clever! I also loved how they captured him in the tree and wouldn't let him down. Anyone who touched the tree would die. Other than that, death just didn't exist. Brilliant. Of course, they had to let him down--eventually.THE ENDING:Death kills all of them (their time has come--that sort of thing--nothing vile). They go walking off. The movie goes off. MY REACTION:I'm crying. I didn't know that this movie was made in 1939! A great film. A must see!