On Borrowed Time (1939) on Netflix
Passed19391h 39mDramaFamilyFantasy
Julian Northrup, called Gramps, is raising his orphaned grandson Pud. Pud's aunt Demetria wants the boy and the money his father left him. Then Mr. Brink, death itself, comes for Gramps.
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- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.7/102,537 votes
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Plot summary
Pud's parents are killed in an auto wreck, and the boy goes to live with his grandfather Julian Northrup, called Gramps, and his Granny Nellie. Gramps gets around in a wheelchair, smokes a pipe and fishes, and Pud copies everything he does. Pud's aunt Demetria has designs on the boy and on the money his father left him. After the funeral Gramps gives a large sum to the minister, and Pud tells him the good deed has earned him a wish. When boys steal his apples, Gramps wishes that anyone who climbs the tree can come down only when he says so. Then Mr. Brink, who personifies death, arrives to take Gramps, and Gramps refuses to leave Pud.
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about On Borrowed Time (1939)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Lionel Barrymore took the role of Gramps in On Borrowed Time from Frank Morgan, who had been slated for it, by convincing the studio he could play it even though he himself needed a wheelchair.
- The film's tale of Death trapped in a tree comes from a Greek fable in which Death is tricked into climbing a pear tree that Saint Polycarp had blessed so that anyone stealing an old woman's pears would be stuck there.
- Mr. Brink's line about taking Gramps "where the woodbine twineth" traces to an 1870 poem by Septimus Winner, writing as Apsley Street, that softened death, heaven and the afterlife into euphemism.
