A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a 1945 drama set in the Brooklyn tenements around the turn of the twentieth century. The Nolan family is Irish American and poor, and the household rests largely on Katie, who takes in work and holds things together while her husband Johnny, a warm but unreliable dreamer, struggles with drink and cannot keep a job. Their young daughter Francie is bright and determined, and much of the film follows her efforts to hold on to her hopes, including a wish to attend a better school, as the family weathers small and large troubles, among them the loss of the single tree visible from their building. Katie's sister Sissy, with her messy romantic history, and the neighbourhood policeman McShane figure in the family's life as well.

The film was directed by Elia Kazan, the first of the ten features listed for him, and written by Tess Slesinger and Frank Davis from Betty Smith's novel. Louis D. Lighton produced it for 20th Century Fox. Dorothy McGuire plays Katie, Joan Blondell plays Aunt Sissy, James Dunn plays Johnny, and Lloyd Nolan plays Officer McShane, with James Gleason and Ted Donaldson among a credited cast of eighty-nine. On TMDB it holds a rating of 7.5 out of 10 from about a hundred votes, a fairly high average on modest sampling that suggests those who have seen it regard it well.