Zeus

Wednesday's Child (1934)

• Director
  • John S. Robertson
• Writers
  • Leopold Atlas(from the play by)
  • Willis Goldbeck(screenplay)
• Stars
  • Karen Morley
  • Edward Arnold
  • Frankie Thomas

  Wednesday's Child, the song goes, is "full of woe." This is indeed the case for Bobby (Frankie Thomas), who is bundled off to military school when his father (Edward Arnold) and mother (Karen Morley) divorce. That Bobby was forced to testify during the divorce action was traumatic enough; now he must face the grim reality that neither of his parents really want him around. Eventually, Bobby's dad relents and brings the boy home -- not the painfully realistic original ending of the Leopold Atlas play upon which this film was based. When RKO Radio refilmed Wednesday's Child as Child of Divorce in 1946 (with Sharyn Moffett playing a distaff version of the Frankie Thomas role), Atlas' doleful ending was left intact.