audubon-1 First time I've ever seen this forty year old movie, and I loved it.Was that really Ron Howard ? (Well we didn't get Andy Griffith Show so I'm not used to him being so young). I always find Glenn Ford to be a tru pro, and was happy to see Stella Stevens in it.I think she starred in Girls Girls Girls around the same period.I used to have a huge poster of her and Elvis on my wall when I was a kid(from Girls Girls Girls). I prefer this kind of movie to many on the screen today. At least men and women drressed well then.

sddavis63 I've see episodes of the TV series of the same name a few times and was never actually very taken with it. I just didn't find it funny as a sitcom. The story can really only go on for so long and still be interesting. However, as a two hour movie, the story fits in well and although very obviously a 60's movie it's really quite enjoyable if you can lighten up and not get too offended by some of the sexist attitudes toward women, etc.The performances here were generally of a high calibre. Glenn Ford was quite good as the recently widowed Tom Corbet (far superior to Bill Bixby in the TV series), and the supporting cast of Roberta Sherwood as the housekeeper Mrs. Livingston and Shirley Jones, Stella Stevens and Dina Merrill as the various women who turn Corbet's head from time to time all did well in their roles. I was really taken with young Ron Howard, though. He must surely have been one of the finest child actors ever. His performance as Eddie in this picture was so realistic as he deals with his emotions around his mother's death and his feelings about his father moving on with life was wonderful. (Watch this if only to see Howard in the scene when he discovers the dead fish; his emotion in this scene was raw and powerful.) There's some amusing (if politically incorrect) scenes in this with a surprising (for 1963) amount of sexual innuendo (all innocent, of course, given the year.)Disappointments? Well, Jerry Van Dyke did nothing for me as radio DJ Norman Jones. Having heard the few snippets of his radio show that the movie includes I have to ask - why would anyone listen to him? I have to concede that I also found it a bit offensive that apparently within a relatively short time after his wife's death Corbett is out playing the field again. But, of course, that was necessary to the story.Overall, it's dated but still an enjoyable couple of hours.8/10

dlene66 I grew up watching the t.v. series of this movie and I thought that it was cute. The movie version I watched today(2002). I am so confused about the charm of this movie. Ron Howard was the only reason I didn't turn this mess off. Eddie's father would have been brought up on charges of neglect by now. After the long scene when Eddie is missing and the neighbor tells the father to go home, he does. I couldn't get past that. If all of the melodrama was a setup to show what a devoted father Mr. Corbett was, it missed. No parent would not even want to SEE their child after he has been missing. He also didn't touch Eddie when he came home. I am not trying to rant, but the movie really lost me as to it's appeal in the sixties, or even the 80's or 90's. Again, Ronny Howard was the only saving grace.

jimtheven A "heartwarming comedy"? Actually, it's rather chilling in its extremely dated weirdness. And not too much of a comedy either. It's fascinating in the way it's totally NOT what you'd think it would be. I at least thought little Eddie would be doing some cutesy matchmaking with the three prospects (blonde, redhead, and brunette)and creating the same sort of domestic comedy of errors you find in THE PARENT TRAP. But the relationships and storylines are strangely separate (especially the one featuring the ditsy Stella Stevens character, who should have been called Holly Golightly Lite). Little Ronnie Howard was one of the cutest Hollywood child actors and if not one of the best little actors, one of the most endearingly natural. The running bit about the "skinny eyes" of the bad ladies is a gem. When Glenn Ford quotes it angrily in a serious scene it's honestly hilarious. The best thing you can say about the movie is that it's uniquely true-to-life in its mixture of tragedy and whimsy and grief and yuks. Or is that the worst? The whole thing just seems so "off". Take the scene with the dead goldfish and little Eddie's screeching. Funny for four seconds than disturbing, even shocking, in the way it plays out for three minutes. Then there's the fact that Ford has been a widower for only a week or two when the matchmaking zaniness starts. The way that his grief is either crassly patronized or totally ignored. Minnelli's elegant camerawork seems jarringly ill-suited to the genre in spots. Ford makes Eddie's Father an idiosyncratically edgy and fidgety not-all-there nuerotic. Quite different from the stalwart and wise and only slightly goofy generic American Pop you imagine just from the title. (Similar to the one Brian Keith played in THE PARENT TRAP.) A must-see for nostalgic boomers just for the art direction. Dig that indigo blue on Dina Merrill's walls! As for Ford's final choice, let's just say that Eddie, in the wisdom of his six years, might have goofed.