Annie Was a Wonder (1949) User Reviews

A Lovely Debut

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 15 February 2007]

This one reel short subject was the debut of beloved character actress Kathleen Freeman in which she plays Swedish immigrant Annie, who hires out as domestic help for what we would consider really pittance wages of $15.00 a week. For that she put in an 84 hour work week. It's bad enough, but you also have to remember she's live in help as well and her room and board are free.

As Annie, all the brassiness that characterized Kathleen Freeman's screen persona is all there. The charm is there too as she wins her place in the affections of the family that hired her. Her good Swedish cooking helps in that department.

Kathleen Freeman worked steady on the big and small screen from this point on right up to her death in 2001. I'm not sure she ever starred in anything other than this short subject from John Nesbitt's Passing Parade Series. Yet this particular short was an Oscar winner in 1948 and the reason for it is Kathleen Freeman.

She went places and we the audience are all the better for it.

Annie Was A Wonder.

[nycritic · 6/10 · 17 April 2005]

One of the many one reel films that Turner Classic Movies is prone to show in between full-length films, ANNIE WAS A WONDER is one of the many shorts narrated by John Nesbitt featuring the film debut of Kathleen Freeman, best known for her much later movie and TV career even though she acted all throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s. She plays Swedish immigrant Annie Svenson who comes to the US and works a maid for an affluent family, and slowly forges a life of her own while retaining her own identity as a person. This is a simple production which manages to convey a cute clash of a foreign culture with Americana with essentially apt performances.

Kathleen Freeman in what is probably her only starring role...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 8 July 2008]

I always think of KATHLEEN FREEMAN as Miss Dinsmore, the vocal coach for Jean Hagen in the hilarious SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. Actually she had numerous TV and film credits to her name for a long period of time beginning in the late '40s, but this is her only starring role in a John Nesbitt "Passing Parade" short about immigrant hired girls from Europe.

Freeman is Annie Swenson from Sweden, who doesn't pass the test as maid to an American household until the dad gets a taste of her cooking. As the narrator says, from then on she "conquers the father through the stomach" with some good Swedish recipes.

"I guess I don't send for my trunk, yes?" she asks in her Swedish accented voice.

She becomes a dear member of the family and eventually marries and has to say her good-byes to the family that took her in as a maid, starting at 84 hours a week, room and board, for $15 a month.

A nice look back at a time that doesn't exist any longer with a fine performance from Freeman in this Oscar-nominated short from MGM.

Lovely story!!

[tonisavage · 11 October 2003]

It's a shame that John Nesbitt's stories aren't shown more often... I caught this one on TCM's "One Reel Wonders" segment, along with "Our old Car". His stories really show what it was like at the beginning of the 20th century. I hope someone does the same for our era.

A sweet little bit of Americana

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 25 January 2013]

Kathleen Freeman was an actress who seemed to have been in practically everything over the years--ranging from playing a semi-regular on "Hogan's Heroes" to a "Naked Gun" film to "The Magnetic Monster" to "The Dick Van Dyke Show". She was one of those faces you instantly recognize but whose name you don't recall and her IMDb credits run to almost 300 entries! Freeman plays Annie Swenson--a Swedish immigrant who comes to work for the narrator's family in the early 20th century. It seems that a lot of single foreign women came to the US that way--and they worked incredibly hard as domestics to support themselves. As such, the film is like a tribute to these women and both a nice history lesson AND a sweet little short film. See the film and you'll know what I mean--it's very well made and easy to like.

Not a miraculous watch by any (no pun intended!) means

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 23 February 2018]

"Annie Was a Wonder" is an American 11-minute black-and-white sound film from 1949, so this one will have its 70th anniversary next year and it was written and produced by James nesbitt who is also the narrator here and tells us the story of a young woman, who is a housekeeper and may bring her very unique touch and approach into the family when dealing with the kids, making meals and all kinds of communications with the family members in general. i was not really well-entertained by this one. Actress Kathleen Freeman plays the main character and adds some solid charm to the role, but it's not enough alone to make the film work. Story-wise it felt really unimpressive and maybe only film historians should watch it today. The only somewhat entertaining moment in this not particularly serious short was when the master of the house appreciates Annie's cooking skills so much that he says it was all the boys' fault to keep her from getting fired for a previous incident. This moment alone is not enough for over 10 minutes though and especially the ending is disappointing as the wedding feels rushed in very much I must say for a feel-good happy ending that totally sacrifices authenticity from the story-telling perspective. I give this one a thumbs-down and recommend you don't watch it. Funnily, it lost the Oscar to another film where Sweden plays a major role. That's all folks.

Affectionate Film Debut For Kathleen Freeman

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 22 July 2005]

An MGM JOHN NESBITT'S PASSING PARADE Short Subject

Our Swedish hired girl ANNIE WAS A WONDER in those long ago days before the First World War.

This Oscar-nominated gem is a tribute to the European women who came to America looking for work - $15 a month, 84 hours a week, 14 hours a day - in the years preceding World War One. Warmhearted & utterly charming, it is also a showcase for character actress Kathleen Freeman (1919-2001), starring as Annie Swenson. A talented performer of stage, screen and television, Miss Freeman continued to entertain audiences right up until her death at age 82.

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.

$15 A Month

[boblipton · 5/10 · 26 November 2022]

Kathleen Freeman plays Anna, a Swedish immigrant who worked as a housekeeper for John Nesbitt's family in the long ago days. It's from the last year of MGM THE PASSING PARADE, a series that Nesbitt had been performing, on radio, in the movies, and later on television, since the middle of the 1930s.

It's a story of America, with the foreigner of today becoming the solid American several decades later.

It's a rebuke to the know-nothing, anti-Foreign impulse that so often afflicts people. I speak from experience. My paternal grandparents came from Europe about a century ago, finding work as, respectively, a hat maker and a scrub woman.

Fair Short

[Michael_Elliott · 2 March 2009]

Annie Was a Wonder (1949)

** (out of 4)

Oscar-nominated short from John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series. Nesbitt narrates the story of Annie (Kathleen Freeman), a Swedish woman who came to American to work as a maid. She's almost fired on her first day but the father of the family falls in love with her cooking and keeps her on. This here leads to a close relationship between the family and their maid. This is a decent short but there's really nothing here to make it worth seeking out, although if you've got ten minutes to kill and spot it on Turner Classic Movies then you mind find it as mild entertainment. Freeman gives a pretty good performance but the film never really allows her to take shape and deliver what we need and that was some sort of character movement. The narration is decent but there's just not enough here to keep it going even through its short running time.

And this is where it began for a beloved comic whose style will never fade.

[mark.waltz · 8/10 · 20 November 2020]

God bless the character actress, the plain jane who looks pretty much like everybody else. Frown lines, scraggly hair, a bit of a spare tire, yet so much more loveable than the glamour girls. So was Kathleen Freeman who is best known for her appearance in 12 Jerry Lewis movies and practically every sitcom ever made from "Topper" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show" to "Golden Girls" and "Murphy Brown". In the 1980's, she used a yard stick as a discipline tool for the cursing John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd and later cursed up a storm herself as the cranky landlady interviewed by Ackroyd and Tom Hanks in the big screen "Dragnet". But it all began in this MGM short where, top billed, she plays the Swedish born Annie who is hired as a housekeeper and is soon a part of the family.

Freeman deals with the two pranksterish sons in a way that makes her a pal, and squirms her way into the master's heart with her homestyle cooking while on the verge of being fired. Freeman really shows us "The Full Monty" of her talents with comedy, pathos and dignity, a true angel with a bit of the devil in her spirit. She doesn't overdo the Swedish accent so the result of her performance is sincere and realistic and not overdone like others (particularly El Brendel) who stretched it to unbearable annoyance. It's a testimony to Freeman's big talents that this short rests on her shoulders, and it's a shame that she never got other chances to shine in a lead, because she is the real deal.

Our first one was Annie Swenson, from Vallborg, Sweden.

[Sylviastel · 9/10 · 9 June 2019]

Kathleen Freeman was unrecognizable as Annie Swenson, a Swedish immigrant who had become hired by a family. At first, she creates a terrible impression on the parents when their sons are playing around with her and she turned the hose on them too. Still, Freeman was wonderful in her role and stole the short film.

This home movie of the future Mr. "Passing Parade" . . .

[oscaralbert · 8/10 · 14 March 2017]

. . . reveals that John Nesbitt suffered from some sort of boyhood glandular problem which stunted his growth to a minuscule one-hundredth of an inch from age 10 to 15, the span of John's childhood covered during ANNIE WAS A WONDER. The title character toiled at hard labor for 84 hours weekly at a pay rate of LESS THAN a nickel an hour. The stingy Rich People of the new and odoriferous Rump\Scents Administration plan to ELIMINATE the minimum wage, since their Moscow Master Red Commie KGB Chief Vlad "Mad Dog" Putin's Russia sees no need for minimum wages. Russian serfs have never been able to find time for outside hobbies, unlike America's Black Slaves of the 1800s, who invented Negro Spirituals, Jumping the Broom, Dark Chocolate Pie, Jazz, and NBA Basketball in the Spare Time of their Antebellum Days. So all of you California burger flippers better enjoy your $7.65 hourly Bonanza while it lasts, because if you're not up to Annie's snuff, your next boss under Rump\Scents might decide you're only worth TWO CENTS an hour!