Never Too Late

Never Too Late is a 1965 comedic feature film directed by Bud Yorkin and produced by Norman Lear. It stars 54-year-old Maureen O'Sullivan as the wife of a businessman (played by 64-year old Paul Ford) who discovers, after 25 years of marriage, that she is to become a mother for the second time. Adding to the complications is the fact that their married daughter (Connie Stevens) and her husband (Jim Hutton) live with them. Plot Harry Lambert is a New England lumber company executive in a humdrum life with his wife Edith. He feels his life has grown stale since his recent defeat in an election for town mayor. Adding to his frustrations, the mayor who defeated him in the election is a neighbour. His adult daughter Kate is of little or no help to anybody; she and her husband Charlie live with Harry and Edith, and Charlie lives a freeloader's life, working at the lumber company. Bothered by unexplained fatigue, Edith is persuaded by her friend Grace (Jane Wyatt) to go see a doctor. Edith learns she is pregnant. Her daughter Kate wishes she were also pregnant. Kate begins pressuring her husband Charlie to get her pregnant, without success. Harry doesn't want to be a father again at his age; in his sixties, he worries that he will be in his eighties when the child graduates from college, leaving him embarrassed and feeling foolish. He also complains about Edith's spending, particularly after a misjudged prank by Charlie and himself insulting the mayor leads to their losing a lumber supply contract for a new stadium.