The Life-Affirming Song and Dance of ‘Bundle of Joy’

Neither storks nor Santa Claus deliver babies, but the plot of Norman Taurog’s Technicolor comedy-musical Bundle of Joy (1956) in which Debbie Reynolds plays Polly Parish, who is mistaken for an out-of-wedlock single mother, would certainly have you believe they might. The story evokes another very unconventional birth, that of Jesus, and challenged the audience of its time to think more deeply about the true nature of Christian morality, even as it was packaged in a lighthearted story.