ELEANOR LAWSON This movie is an excellent slice of life back in the day. The father and the mother were both pioneers in motion studies and took on the challenge of raising a dozen children according to their precepts of high educational and moral standards and this movie concerns the various humorous situations that occur throughout the years including the woman who was told that the mother would be a good "family planning representative," democratic family meetings, the father's insistence that the girls wear old fashioned bathing costumes at the beach, the father's stand against make up and new-style undergarments. Sadly, the father suffered a fatal heart attack while traveling and we get to see the family pull together to enable the mother to carry on with the family business.

edwagreen The film succeeds because it brings back such nostalgia regarding what the meaning of a true family is.Clifton Webb, as always, is just fabulous in the title role. Eccentric, loving and king, he etched an unforgettable character.In order to show the subservience of women at that time, Myrna Loy's role is very weak and only until the unhappy ending is it revealed what she went on to achieve.Webb, a great character actor, was able to relate to children so well in this film as well as his Oscar nominated performance in "Sitting Pretty." (1948)When tragedy strikes at the end of the film, the children react in a manner that only children who were brought up so well would react.Surprised though that Sara Allgood, such a great actress, was relegated to such a tiny part here. This was probably her last film and it was sad to see her career end on such an unimportant role.The film succeeds because of Webb's tight but loving rule of the children.Mildred Natwick steals one scene as a woman who asks Webb and Loy to use their home for meetings regarding the limiting of children in a family!"Cheaper By the Dozen" succeeds because it's a part of Americana that can never be captured again.

bkoganbing Cheaper By the Dozen was a milestone film in the career of Clifton Webb. Though he had gotten great acclaim for his acerbic roles of the forties, Darryl F. Zanuck knew that Webb's screen persona made him extremely difficult to cast. Cheaper By the Dozen was an attempt to transition Webb into a kinder, gentler Clifton. Of course to play wife and mother opposite him Zanuck got the services of Myrna Loy, THE personification of the screen wife. If the public were to accept Webb, she would be a part of their doing so.Fortunately for 20th Century Fox the public did accept Webb in this role and he was able to branch out a bit in his choice of parts.You mention this title now and of course most will think of Steve Martin and his two recent films that grossed gazillions at the box office. Martin's brood are a modern family, whereas Webb is the head of a family straddling the teens and twenties decades.Cheaper By the Dozen also affords fans an opportunity to see a bit of Clifton Webb, dancer. Back when he was a musical comedy star on Broadway, Webb was considered every bit the equal of Fred Astaire as a dancer. He dances here with Loy and eldest daughter Jeanne Crain some of the period dances of the Twenties and cuts quite the rug.Webb's character is Frank Gilbreath, well known industrial efficiency expert and a real person. Jeanne Crain provides the offscreen narration and we see the action in her eyes. She's also got an eye for lifeguard Craig Hill in the film and he's quite the eyeful.This Cheaper By the Dozen is a nice nostalgic romp which a lot of studios were doing around this time. MGM did Life With Father and Warner Brothers filmed two of Booth Tarkington's Penrod stories with Gordon MacRae and Doris Day. This version can also hold its own with the Steve Martin version anytime.

evanston_dad If I were to be kidnapped by terrorists, making me watch this movie again would be more effective than any other brand of torture they could devise. If you want information out of me, just let me get a glimpse of Jeanne Crain's saccharine, dreadful performance here and I'll break faster than a ninety-year-old woman's hip.Ugh! This movie is obnoxious, probably loved by people who like that horrible home improvement show on T.V. hosted by that twerp who screams into a bullhorn for an hour. As everyone probably knows because of the remake, Clifton Webb plays the droll father of a big batch of precocious, freckled, gooey 50s children, and the laughs I guess are supposed to come from watching him run his home with the efficiency of a drill sergeant. Myrna Loy is on hand, which you'd think would make things more tolerable, but the director pretty much shoves her into a corner and throws a dust cover over her. There's nothing funny in this movie, nothing moving, nothing even interesting: it's entirely lacking in dramatic conflict, and what drama there is (a shameless attempt at tearjerking in the film's final moments) doesn't work because it's so phony.Yuck.Grade: D- (o.k. I'll refrain from giving it an F only because I like Myrna Loy)