Sitting Pretty

Moviecut—Sitting Pretty

source: Sitting Pretty

Sitting Pretty

Clifton Webb is very droll as the self-described genius who tames a suburban household of kids. And one dog. He is the central figure, but the rest of the cast is very good as well: Richard Hayden is a nosy neighbor is amusing -- though is there a bit of snickering toward his character in the screenplay? Not his gossiping but his -- well, less than masculine behavior and interests? Toward Webb's character, there is none. It's a pleasure to see Maureen O'Hara in movies other than the John Wayne stuff for which she is best known. She was a lovely woman and a highly appealing actress. Robert Young is OK as his husband, a rather dimwitted sort for a lawyer. I can't imagine anyone disliking this. It is funny and well crafted. In some ways, the dreadful children and horticulturally inclined neighbor are a comic flip-flop on film noir of its day: Come home from the WAR; do your best - And this is what you have to put up with. (Though O'Hara is certainly an engaging Penelope-figure.)

"Hummingbird Hill is a typical suburban community," we learn in the opening, "where everybody knows a little more than a little about everybody." This is where well-heeled attorney Robert Young (as Harry King) and his beautiful wife Maureen O'Hara (as Tacey) have trouble finding a nanny to care for their three rambunctious sons. They are happy upon receiving word "Lynn Belvedere" will accept the position of live-in babysitter (who can do a little light housework). The expected woman turns out to be male-by-gender Clifton Webb, a self-proclaimed genius who proves to be an expert at everything, including children. However, he keeps a secret behind his locked bedroom door... ******** Sitting Pretty (3/10/48) Walter Lang ~ Clifton Webb, Maureen O'Hara, Robert Young, Richard Haydn

Harry (Robert Young) and Tacey King (Maureen O'Hara) have three kids and a dog in the suburbs. Their nanny has have enough and walks out on them. In desperation, they call up 16 year old Ginger despite her crush on Harry. They return home to find babysitter Ginger and her friends throwing a dance party. Tacey decides to place an ad and Lynn Belvedere (Clifton Webb) answers. Tracey is shocked to find an older strange gentleman who claims to be a genius at her door. OMG. This is where the TV show comes from. First, it's light weight. Then, it gets weird. From yoga on, it gets funny. The comedy is fairly sitcom-ish which is fitting for its later iteration. It mostly boils down to somebody getting frustrated with Belvedere's strange mannerisms. This does introduce Belvedere which is a fun safe character to skewer the white bread suburbs. All in all, it's an easy comedy with an intriguing fish out of water character.

This is one of my favourite comedies. I have seen this movie countless times and always manage to laugh myself to tears. Can you imagine meeting someone like Belvedere who seems to have done every job imaginable? I think all the cast did a wonderful job in this movie and I only wish that the movies of today were like this one. No swearing, car chases just plain old fashioned fun. I am sure that there are towns in the world that have neighbourhoods like Hummingbird Hill with nosy neighbours who watch your every move. My husband and I are also wondering when are they going to put this movie out on DVD? They seem to pass over these Classics for some reason which is such a shame.

This film oozes charm and warmth with the feel of an America that never really existed like the Carvel of Andy Hardy or the England of Quiet Wedding. For many people this was the start of Clifton Webb's career, for slightly older filmgoers his career began four years previously with his Waldo Lydecker in Laura, but for seriously old Broadway buffs he began as an accomplished and debonair song-and-dance man a quarter of a century earlier (he was, for example, in Cole Porter's first Broadway Show, See America First (a flop) in 1916 and in 1937 he introduced Porter's At Long Last Love. With Lynn Belvedere the role and the man came together triumphantly and ever after he played only leads. We should give at least a nod in passing to Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara, who actually get top-billing and Richard Hadyn as the 'old woman' gossip but it's Webb's movie from the very first frame in which he appears.

Absolutely delightful and entertaining film about family life, character and values. The effects are somewhere along the lines of the Andy Hardy films, but with a different plot and characters. Clifton Webb was made for his part. A great actor. One of those types of people that you would want to have dinner with and talk about intellectual things over a good bottle of wine.

A very pleasant, agreeable little effort, dominated by the magnificent Clifton Webb - as sanguine and savourably sour a figure as rarely seen in Hollywood... His character, Lynn Belvedere, is absolutely wonderful; wry, serene, roundly honest and arrogant; he is the focal point of the majority of the humour. The other actors are fine, with Maureen O'Hara, Richard Haydn and Robert Young more than capable supports. Yet... Belvedere's superiority is never in question: when asked at *what* he works, he simply and unequivocally states, "I am a genius". Says it all really! There are so many witty one-liners, and amusing touches in comparison to many modern films on the same themes of babysitting and American suburbia. This is one of the most enjoyable films of its era; propelled to lofty heights by Clifton Webb's indomitable prescence. A touch of waspish, queer old England thrust into the picket-fence garden of American suburbia.