Leo McCarey directs this tear-jerking family drama based on a stage play by Helen and Nolan Leary, which was in turn based on the novel The Years Are So Long by advice columnist Josephine Lawrence. When elderly couple Barkley and Lucy Cooper (Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) lose their home during the Great Depression, none of their five children will take both parents in and the two are forced to live separately. While Barkley moves in with daughter Cora (Elisabeth Risdon), Lucy goes to live with son George (Thomas Mitchell) - but both find it difficult to fit in with the busy cosmopolitan lifestyles of their middle-aged children.