An advertising executive is shocked to learn that his daughter has married. He insists on visiting and is staggered to find her about to give birth — at home in a New York loft with only her nonconformist husband to help. Also starring David Janssen and Kim Darby. The film was also known as A Time for Caring in the U.S. and A Time for Giving in the U.K.
This film, taken from the stage play, is the sweet story of Walter and Doris Owen, flower children of the late sixties who are in love, pregnant and get married (in that order) on a shoe string budget with anti-establishment plans to deliver their baby at home. Home is a shabby, industrial loft apartment in lower Manhattan. Doris’s dad, a well to do businessman gets one shock after the other as he learns his only daughter’s situation and has to cope with it.
I have mixed feelings about this film. Peter had high hopes that it would be a big boost to his budding film career – but the movie was poorly received. And his ill-fated relationship with Kim Darby, although a quite capable and appealing ingénue at that time, lead to devastating personal results.
I however do have a private affection for this movie as parts of it where filmed right around the corner from my father’s one man metal spinning shop on Broome Street. My father knowing what a film buff I am and not wanting me to take any time off from a new job I’d recently started, did not tell me about the production until days after the film company left. Then he’d tell us stories regarding the situation. Like the crew putting a fake telephone booth on his corner for a scene where David Janssen has to make a call or the fact that people in the neighborhood which was both industrial and residential, came around uninvited when craft services trucks pulled up. On one of the four days they filmed at that location, a crew member knocked on my dad’s door and asked if he would keep it closed for awhile. I believe that was for the early over the credits scene where Peter and Kim are walking home with a grocery bag. Also, my dad often spoke of a tall, thin young man who called himself Andrew who said he was an actor on the film and stopped in to see what my dad was doing. Later when the film came out, my mom and I figured out he was describing actor Andrew Prine. Had Mr. Prine been a forties film star, my father would have immediately recognized him.
For Peter’s fans this should be a must see film. Walter Owen is an intelligent, sweet, earnest young man with independent ideas, not unlike the actor who plays him. And it is easy to fall under his spell. But I still have a bittersweet feeling about Generation, not only because I missed the chance of a lifetime to see it being filmed but also wish with all my heart that Peter aspirations for the film had come true and that another actress where cast as Doris instead of Miss Darby.
I really like this film. First time I watched it is 9-24-16. I did skip ahead on some spots that could have been edited out. However, I did enjoy the film, especially the parts of the father’s change in his character and the husband character change of emotions. It is sad that the public didn’t see the humor in this film that I saw. I was laughing all the way through, except the last scenes of her having the baby. Thank you for having this on your web site.