I'm mega-tired tonight but I will try to finish the whole blog, haha. I watched a movie called "Belles On Their Toes" (1952), which was a sequel to a film called "Cheaper By The Dozen" (1950), which we saw about a year ago when we were on a Clifton Webb kick. In that movie (and give yourself a Gold Star if you remember it), Webb starred as a scientist who worked as an efficiency expert for a major corporation. His specialty was motion study, and he used it in every facet of his life, to do things like eat his meals faster or get dressed with less effort. He was married to Myrna Loy, who was a psychologist, and they had twelve children, hence the title "Cheaper By The Dozen". Clifton Webb was so great in the lead role, apparently based on a real person, and the script in that first movie followed the family up and down the East Coast as Webb changed jobs, continued to develop his unorthodox lifestyle, and tried to accept his oldest daughters' desire to be part of modern culture, to wear makeup and the latest clothing styles. It was a really great story (remade for Steve Martin in 2003), but the only downside was that Clifton Webb - the Dad - died at the end. I guess the real guy, Mr. Galbreath, died also and they wanted to keep the story authentic.
But at the end of "Cheaper", it is up to Myrna Loy now to keep the family together. This had always been Clifton Webb's main goal, even over his career. He loved his kids, and because of the way they were raised, they love being together. It's a family in the truest sense of the word, all for one and one for all, and everyone has different jobs around the house to keep things running smoothly. There are also little cliques between different sets of siblings, but generally they are all happy to be on the same team.
So when Webb dies at the end of "Cheaper", Myrna Loy decides that if she is to keep the family together, she will have to train to be an engineer and an efficiency expert, just as her husband was.
This is where "Belles On Their Toes" kicks off. Loy is now head of the family but is having difficulty being taken seriously as a female scientist. Meanwhile, Jeanne Crain as the eldest daughter puts her own life on hold in order to help her Mom out. While Loy travels in search of a job, Crain stays home as a surrogate mother to the brood. She in turn has plenty of help from her two closest sisters, Barbara Bates and Debra Paget, both of whom have taken their late father's efficiency lessons to heart.
Crain has many suitors while Mother Loy is away, and this storyline is the main plot of the movie, involving her conflicted emotions between her loyalty to her family and her desire to live her own life and have a relationship. Martin Milner of "Adam 12" fame has a hilarious role as Jeanne Crain's first boyfriend, a pompous, wealthy goombah whom her eleven brothers and sisters can't stand.
Handsome Jeffery Hunter, who would later play Jesus Christ, fares better. He is a local doctor who Crain eventually falls in love with, and this is where her conflict begins, torn between family and independence. The movie is hardly a drama, however. It continues the family fun and shenanigans that you'd expect from an early 1950s movie about a single Mom with twelve kids. She has a helper, a combination handyman/servant played by famous American songwriter Hoagy Carmichael. He is always brewing up batches of illicit hooch down in the cellar, which serves as comic relief.
The real stars of the show, and the focus of the story, are the three eldest daughters, and it must be said that you'd be hard pressed to find a more attractive trio than Jeanne Crain, Barbara Bates, and the stunning Debra Paget. The producers knew this of course, and by keeping things lively with all of the interplay between the 20 or so different characters in the film, the three beauties stand out even more by being part of the ensemble.
This is 1952, so the tone is wonderfully wholesome throughout. I have a weird nostalgia for the 1950s, because I didn't live through it but I wish I did, or at least the Hollywood version of it, which probably wasn't too far off the real thing.
I deplore the way things are now in America, and let us all pray that God will save us, and the world, from four more years of Donald Trump. May we return to more wholesome ways, and experience good times in this country again.
Obviously, you can tell that I loved "Belles On Their Toes". I give it Two Very Big Thumbs Up, but the deal is that you have to watch "Cheaper By The Dozen" first, to better appreciate the sequel, and believe me, you will indeed appreciate it. But watch the first one first, to understand how the family came to be the way they are, under the paternal tutelage of the eccentric but brilliant Clifton Webb. ///
That's all I know for tonight, and hey! - it looks like I made it through the blog without falling asleep.
Not too shabby, I say, and I give myself a High Five right now, on the spot. :)
See you in the morning, hope you had a good day too. Love, love, love.. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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