I just noticed something in this movie. Where the "h" is the father in all this? Here's the woman giving birth and trying to raise a lovely child and the only time I saw him was in the hock shop trying to pawn his fiddle or whatever it was. I know I missed a few things in the movie because I am working during it, but it just seems that this is a sorry state of events when everyone else is there for her except the old man.
shareThe same thing occurred to me. The father seemed a nice man who loved his family but was seldom to be seen, neither earning much of a living for his family nor offering much in the way of spousal/parental support. Was he a musician who couldn't find any work other than with these inadequately paying private violin lessons? Steve and that blind man provided more fatherly attention to Flavia than her own dad, it appeared to me.
shareHe was probably working ALL. THE. TIME. Musicians have to work hard to hit pay dirt in any age, and this was during the depression.
He appears at the beginning and end of the movie, in addition to that pawn shop scene. It would have been nice to see more of him, I agree, but his absence speaks volumes on what was necessary to keep a family going. It was supposed to.