On Our Merry Way (1948)

aka's: A Miracle Can Happen/Along Came Baby

Oliver Pease (Burgess Meredith) gets a dose of courage from his wife Martha (Paulette Goddard) and tricks the editor of the paper 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 cardshark. 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? Also stars James Stewart and Henry Fonda. And with Dorothy Lamour and Fred MacMurray.

Charles Laughton played a bible-reading minister. However, the powers-that-be decided to drop this 'religious' story altogether and it was replaced by a more comic one featuring Dorothy Lamour. The film in this new version was then re-titled On Our Merry Way. However, prints of the original film had already been sent abroad for dubbing. In Spain, A Miracle Can Happen became Una Encuesta Llamada Milagro, complete with the original Laughton sequence intact (but without the alternative Dorothy Lamour story).