Other Titles • Cheaper by the Dozen • Im Dutzend billiger (1951)
Synopses for Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)
1.
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 standout scene, holding back a smirk while a birth-control advocate (played by Mildred Natwick) solicits this mother of 12 to speak at a rally, but her martini-dry comic deadpan is criminally underused in this picture, which is dominated by Webb's stern, military-like parenting and Crain's adolescent crises. Though this sometimes overly sentimental classic never builds to any real dramatic plateau or comic highlights, it maintains an even tone of good humor and warmth throughout, capturing a bygone era through the travails of a loving family. A charming sequel, Belles on Their Toes, followed two years later. --Sean Axmaker
2.
Clifton Webb stars in this lighthearted comedy as a patriarch who has more children than he can count on both hands. Along with his loving wife, played with dry humor by Myrna Loy, Frank Gilbreth must contend with the problems of five fathers. This includes a mass tonsillectomy and the eldest daughter's adolescent crises; her lack of a date to the school dance is solved skillfully by Dad, who takes her himself! Based on the true story of Frank and Lillian Gibreth's child rearing adventures as they were depicted in the book written by two of their children, CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN is directed with a refreshing post-war optimism by Walter Lang. Though the huge family must be run with a workmanlike, though comic, efficiency, it is Dad's charm and love for his offspring keeps the family together.
3.
"Cheaper By the Dozen", based on the real-life story of the Gilbreth family, follows them from Providence, Rhode Island, to Montclair, New Jersey, and details the amusing anecdotes found in large families. Frank Gilbreth, Sr., was a pioneer in the field of motion study, and often used his family as guinea pigs (with amusing and sometimes embarrassing results). He resisted popular culture,railing against his daughters' desires for bobbed hair and comsmetics.
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