

107 minutes
2/3/1948
Oliver Pease gets a dose of courage from his wife Martha and tricks the editor of the paper (where he writes lost pet notices) into assigning him the day's roving question. Martha suggests, "Has a little child ever changed your life?" Oliver gets answers from two slow-talking musicians, an actress whose roles usually feature a sarong, and an itinerant cardsharp. In each case the "little child" is hardly innocent: in the first, a local auto mechanic's "baby" turns out to be fully developed as a woman and a musician; in the second, a spoiled child star learns kindness; in the third, the family of a lost brat doesn't want him returned. And Oliver, what becomes of him?

Paulette Goddard
as Martha Pease

Burgess Meredith
as Oliver M. Pease

James Stewart
as Slim

Henry Fonda
as Lank Solsky

Harry James
as Harry James

Dorothy Lamour
as Gloria Manners

Victor Moore
as Ashton Carrington

Fred MacMurray
as Al

William Demarest
as Floyd

Hugh Herbert
as Eli Hobbs

Charles D. Brown
as Mr. Sadd

Eduardo Ciannelli
as Maxim

Betty Caldwell
as Cynthia Robbs

Dorothy Ford
as Lola Maxim

Carl Switzer
as Leopold 'Zoot' Wirtz

Eilene Janssen
as Peggy Thorndyke

Frank Moran
as Bookie
David Whorf
as Edgar Hobbs - aka Sniffles Dugan

Henry Hull
as Dying Man (deleted sequence) (uncredited)

Chester Clute
as Bank Teller (uncredited)

Charles Laughton
as Reverend