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DVD Belles on Their Toes
Myrna Loy charms as the Gilbreth family matriarch in this enjoyable 1952 sequel to Walter Lang's comedy Cheaper by the Dozen, based on the autobiographical novel by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. Picking up from the somber ending of Cheaper, in which Frank Sr. (Clifton Webb) dies, leaving behind his wife, Lillian (Loy), and 12 children, Belles focuses on the family's slow recovery and aspirations for a future. Lillian's qualifications as an engineer are dismissed--sometimes humiliatingly--by sexist men, though she finally receives a training position with the plain-speaking Sam Harper (Edward Arnold) and the respect of a major university. Meanwhile, eldest daughter Ann (Jeanne Crain) is wooed by a young doctor (Jeffrey Hunter), and the other Gilbreth kids weed out unsuitable suitors for their dating-age sisters. Several pleasant musical numbers punctuate the comically unpredictable action, including a few by Hoagy Carmichael as the Gilbreth's wry cook. --Tom Keogh
There's an undeniable sweetness and charm to this film, but overall it just doesn't feel as satisfying and well-developed as the movie version of CBTD. That movie wasn't entirely true to every bit of the book, but it overwhelmingly felt close to the book's spirit despite some things that were left out and some things that were invented. In BOTT, the viewer doesn't get nearly as much a sense of period authenticity and details as in the original; it looks more like something from the Fifties instead of a story taking place in the Twenties. And there were a lot of events from the book left out, commingled with a few things that did really happen in the book; the storyline definitely had far more liberties taken with it. Missing all of these important events that really set the mood for how much this family cared for one another and what a great job they did getting by on their own, one doesn't really feel quite as connected to the characters and the plot as in the original. (It was also interesting to note how they cut and pasted two different but similar events from the first and second books, the film of the family eating dinner at something like ten times the normal speed as opposed to the film of Mrs. Gilbreth demonstrating how time-saving the design of her kitchen was.) The book focuses on Mrs. Gilbreth's struggle to raise her eleven children after her husband dies and how she steps into his shoes, even though she was a female engineer in a man's world at a time when many female professionals weren't taken seriously; in real life she was a lot more successful and welcomed than the movie makes her out to be. It's enjoyable enough family entertainment, just lacks the continuity and even pacing of the original. Because of all of the things that were left out and substituted for by things invented (perhaps to give it a more modern feel, like the scene of the beach barbeque/dance party), it just doesn't flow as naturally or seem quite as engaging.
Great Classic Movie!!
This is a great classic movie,hopefully more of these never before classic movies will be released for the first time on dvd!!
Terrific old stuff...
Old values. Wonderful performances by Jeffrey Hunter ("The Searchers") and Jeanne Craine (an original from "Cheaper by the Dozen").
Though it's impossible to gauge just how much of it is true, this endearing family comedy (based on the book by their children Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey) is inspired by the true story of the husband-and-wife efficiency experts Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and their adventures raising 12 kids at the turn of the century. Director Walter Lang takes a loping pace through the episodes of family life: the kids descend upon the new school in force while Dad (fussy Clifton Webb) offers his unsolicited views on education; Dad takes his oldest daughter (wholesome Jeanne Crain) to the school dance and becomes the hit of the ball; a mass tonsillectomy becomes an opportunity to document the ordeal as an experiment in efficiency. Myrna Loy almost steals the film in her one... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Clifton Webb - Myrna Loy Director(s): Walter Lang DVD Release Date: Released the 16 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Predating The Brady Bunch by almost a decade, Yours, Mine, and Ours is a screwball comedy about the ultimate blended family. When the widow Helen North (Lucille Ball) marries the widower Frank Beardsley (Henry Fonda), the two must find a place to house their 18--count 'em, 18!--kids (she had 8, he had 10). Based on a real-life couple, the film details the nuances of everyday life in a house overrun with children. From getting all the kids ready for school to sending off an older son to war, this well-written film is wholesome entertainment that doesn't condescend. Look for the very young Tracy Nelson as Germaine. --Jenny BrownMore Info about this DVD Director(s): Melville Shavelson DVD Release Date: Released the 06 March 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Ah, remember those good old days when father ruled the roost, keeping a tight rein on the money, the kids, and the docile wife? Well, neither does Clarence Day (William Powell), the title character in Life with Father. Taking place in New York in 1883, this charming comedy purports to show the life of a strict father managing his house and his family, only to be constantly--and unknowingly--out-manipulated by his somewhat ditzy wife, Vinnie (Irene Dunne). Day is terrifying enough that maids keep quitting, but Vinnie manages to keep Day under control--that is, until she discovers that he was never baptized. A battle ensues as she desperately tries to ensure that they will one day meet in heaven, and all the while he severely maintains that the church has no business messing with a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): William Powell - Irene Dunne - Elizabeth Taylor Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 04 June 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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After her long and wholesome run as America's Sweetheart, Doris Day quit movies with this well-scrubbed picture. With Six You Get Eggroll--oof, what a title--caught the wave of blended-family comedies, coming just after Yours, Mine and Ours and just before TV's The Brady Bunch. Doris has three sons, and new beau Brian Keith has an 18-year-old daughter (the still-baby-faced Barbara Hershey). It's family-friendly sitcom stuff, with both Day and Keith doing their comfortable, patented thing; when the two of them are onscreen together it's like watching a couple of old sweaters mate. This one is straight formula for fans only, although connoisseurs of camp will enjoy the whiff of Aquarius in the otherwise square proceedings (it was 1968, after all) when Doris goes to a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Doris Day - Brian Keith Director(s): Howard Morris DVD Release Date: Released the 03 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Long before Henry Fonda played an irascible patriarch in On Golden Pond, he played an equally crusty family man in this warmly rustic, 1963 drama Spencer's Mountain, based on an Earl Hamner Jr. novel that later inspired the television series The Waltons. Fonda plays Clay Spencer, a fiercely independent, hard-drinking, foul-mouthed Wyoming laborer who believes in God but rejects (to his tiny community's consternation) organized religion. Scraping together enough money to build a new house for his wife (Maureen O'Hara) and nine children, Spencer runs into an obstacle to both his plans and family pride when his college-bound son (James MacArthur) romances the daughter of Spencer's boss. Director Delmer Daves whips up a kind of morose schmaltz out of the earnest... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Henry Fonda - Maureen O'Hara Director(s): Delmer Daves DVD Release Date: Released the 08 July 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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