The Happiest Millionaire
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Movie Reviews of The Happiest Millionaire
Movie Review: The Happiest Millionare is a Pleasure
Summary: 4 Stars
"The happiest Millionare" was a big roadshow musical Walt Disney produced in 1967 following the smashing success of "Mary Poppins."
Lightning did not strike twice.
The film was dismissed by the critics, returned only $5 million to the studio, and received only a single Oscar nomination, for cotumes.
It is time to re-habilitate this fine work of entertainment.
Since Disney was a staunch Republican, it is no surprise that he chose for his source material, the antics of the Biddle family of Phildelphia at a time when there were few Democrats in Philadelphia, circa 1916.
The film boasts an all star cast which is worth the price of admission, or a dvd. Fred MacMurray, then at the height of his "My Three Sons" fame, stars as Tony Biddle, eccentric millionare who irritates the establishment from keeping live alligators in his house to Aunt Mary, a crusty old society matron delightfully played by Gladys Cooper. Greer Garson stars as Mrs. Biddle and is enchanting. There was always something very intiguing about Ms. Garson; her blend of warmth plus a littler daftness make for an interesting character. Tommy Steele is here in his first American picture and you either like him or you don't. His enthusiasm frequently goes over the top, and he is a little big for the screen, but i enjoy him and admire his great dancing ability, amply shown in this picture. Leslie Ann Warren and John Davidson are the young lovers the story revolves around. Looking at the picture now it seems they were stuck in a time warp-it could have been made in 1947 not '67. They give their numbers their all and they just don't do it like they used to. This can either entice a modern musical enthusiast, or turn off today's audience so wary and weary of musicals.
It is left to Miss Geraldine Page to walk off with the entire picture, and she doesn't even appear till into the second act. As Mrs. Duke, John Davidson's mother, Miss Page knows her way around a sound studio. She also knew that less IS more and is so stunning in her comic moments as your basic New York Society snob. However, the character is from North Carolina, so Miss Page is able to employ that classic accent, that had served her so well, in "The Happiest Millionare." Her costumes are a riot and her bitchy duet with Miss Cooper is a hoot in the "Bosom Buddies" tradition.
The look of the picture is drop dead gorgeous as befitted a big budget musical of the era. At 172 minutes, the picture may be a little long, especially for kids who were the original target audience. The ad campaign stated this was a show in the "Mary Poppins" tradition, and it is not. It is a grown up musical with nothing offensive for children. There may one or two too many numbers, and the score is nowhere near "Mary Poppins" but stick with it till near the end when Greer Garson and Mac Murray sing "It Won't Be Long Till Christmas." This was cut before the movie opened and was not on the original soundtrack. The cd has a different version of the song not from the film soundtrack, as a bonus. It is wistful, contented and a bit sad as is inevitible when parents are facing an empty nest.
And where, but in a Disney musical could you find a cuddly alligator named George. Tommy Tune and George do a show-stopping Act One Finale to a reprise of the film's best song, "Fortuosity," straight from vaudeville. A real treat.
Movie Review: Great Clasic Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
From the days of "squeeky clean movies". In those days, we loved Fred Mc Murray and the then alive Walt Disney. This movie can be used today to examine the people of those days and relate to them. We purchased this movie to send to our grandkids. They are being raised in solid Christian triditions. This movie is a "growth" movie for them.Movie Review: NOT THE HAPPIEST, BUT CERTAINLY THE MOST TYPICAL FROM DISNEY
Summary: 3 Stars
Walt Disney's was a visionary film pioneer; he took the fledgling craft of animation and transformed it into an art form of the highest order, and, in the process, altered our collective perception of what childhood is all about. However, occasionally that vision was marred by Disney's own lack of foresight into changing audience tastes. By the end of the 1950s the Walt Disney Studios had incurred huge expenses on Disney's foray into live action films, the birth of his theme park - Disneyland - and the lack luster box office response to his most recent and most expensive animated feature - Sleeping Beauty. Though the old master was set to recoup his losses, the sumptuously mounted, though often dismal, The Happiest Millionaire (released the year after Disney's death) was the personal and financial failure that rounded out Disney's tenure as the mogul of one of Hollywood's great cinema dream factories. Throughout the 1950s and 60s road show engagements for movies of distinction were quite common. Road shows were designed to elevate movies to the lofty ambitions of live theater. They usually began with a lush orchestrated prelude, included an intermission half way through, and exit music to escort audiences out of the theater after the final credit sequence. One often dressed up for this sort of premiere event, certainly paid extra to attend and was often provided with a printed program as a keep sake from the occasion. Disney had attempted the road show only once before, on Fantasia (1940) and the result had been an unqualified financial disaster. What a pity then, that The Happiest Millionaire - what should have been an eighty-minute tune-filled - if antiseptic and sexless - melodrama, is over inflated into a gargantuan three hours spectacle that, quite simply, fails to dazzle.
The plot is a fictionalized account of real life circumstances that concern an eccentric Philadelphia millionaire, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle (Fred MacMurray). He runs a combination Bible and physical fitness college of sorts, loves boxing and keeps alligators in a solarium adjacent his dining room. When immigrant John Lawless (Tommy Steele) becomes Biddle's new butler he does indeed find his new surroundings rather odd. Not that Lawless isn't odd himself - it's just that, unlike Biddle's quirkiness, which can be grating to the point of distraction, Lawless becomes a genuinely loveable reprobate of congenial good humor, thanks to Tommy Steele's remarkable performance. The plot is thread bare to the point of nonexistent. It concerns Biddle's only daughter, Cordelia (Lesley Ann Warren). She's a sort of tomboy desperate to be feminine and sent off to a lady's finishing school where she meets and becomes engaged to New Yorker Angie Duke (John Davidson). Mrs. Duke (Geraldine Page) is social snob but Angie doesn't share her values. He wants to forgo the family business and build automobiles in Detroit. True to Disney form, everything does indeed work out in the end with Angie and Cordelia driving off toward an unintentionally apocalyptic matte painting that depicts the Motor City as something of a cross between Blade Runner and Mary Poppins, a glowering jungle of towering chimneys blackening the skies with the aftershocks of modernity.
Plot construction is problematic; As Cordelia's mother, Greer Garson is given extremely little to do. One of Disney's good luck charms - Hemione Baddeley has even less of a say. Equally curious is the fact that after the film takes great pains to introduce the Biddle two sons Tony and Livingston (Paul Petersen and Eddie Hodges) - even giving them a song - it suddenly loses interest in their character development by sending them off to school where, as an audience, we forget that they ever existed.
Of course, the plot - such as it is - would be largely forgivable if Disney's resident song writers, the Sherman Brothers had come up with a score worthy of their best endeavors. Tommy Steele opens the show with a bang with, Fortuosity, but the rest of the score does not live up to expectations and, in spots, is painfully sweet and cuddly. Valentine Candy or Boxing Gloves is so coy one wishes for the elegant Tommy Steele to burst into the room and tap dance its treacle into silence. All in all, Steele is remarkably well served by the score, belting out I'll Always Be Irish and several other songs with such austerity and charm that he easily dismisses the awkward lyrics. His choreography by Mark Breaux and Dee Dee Wood showcase Steele's finer points, particularly in the barroom number that closes the second half of the show. Unfortunately, there are no memorable showstoppers that leave one with a sudden urge to run out and buy the soundtrack or even leave the theater humming.
THE TRANSFER: This re-released DVD of The Happiest Millionaire is about as dismal as the film itself. Everything's present: the Overture, Entr'acte and Exit music, but the transfer is not enhanced for widescreen televisions. Unlike the previously available DVD from Anchor Bay, colors seem somewhat more dated this time around and fine details breaks apart with a considerable amount of pixelization and edge enhancement, especially when viewed on a larger monitor. There are also several cases where mis-registration of the camera negative results in an excessively blurry print - something else absent on Anchor Bay's version. This DVD compresses the entire running time on one side of the disc, which I suspect is the biggest problem. There are no extras, not even the trailer.
BOTTOM LINE: Get the Anchor Bay version instead!
Movie Review: "JOHN! My alligators! Look at my alligators! JOHN!"
Summary: 3 Stars
Once upon a time I was involved in a discussion about favorite movies and someone said that their favorite film of all time was THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE. I had never heard of the film before. The person told me that the film was a corny Disney musical starring Fred MacMurray. After now having seen the film for myself, I agree that the film is kind of corny, but it is full of enough quirky and eccentric moments to make it beguiling.
Released in 1967 THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE was the first of a set of musicals that Disney produced in an attempt to capture the success of the highly popular MARY POPPINS. The studio had high hopes for the film. The movie was adapting from a popular (but now mostly forgotten) Broadway stage show of the same name that was in itself adapted from a popular memoir of the time, MY PHILADELPHIA FATHER. The same songwriting pair of MARY POPPINS was hired to write the songs and lyrics for the show. Tommy Steele was cast as the Irish butler who serves as a semi-narrator through parts of the show, Fred MacMurray was cast in the title-role of Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, the Happiest Millionaire, and the beautiful and talented Lesley Ann Warren of recent CINDERELLA fame was cast as Cordelia `Cordy' Drexel Biddle. To top it all off, the film was overseen by Walt Disney himself and was the last live-action film that he ever was involved with.
The film didn't live up to expectations. Initially it only made $5 million and the only Oscar nomination was for costumes. The movie was also apparently panned by critics at the time thus regulating it to the unknown status it has retained for sometime. There isn't anything outstanding about THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE and there isn't much of a plot. Yet, what the film lacks in substance it makes up for in charm.
Taking place in 1916 Philadelphia the movie is basically a story about a daughter's coming of age and the changing relationship between herself and her beloved father. Anthony J. Drexel Biddle was a real life eccentric millionaire who kept alligators in his mansion, led Bible classes that involved boxing, was trained in judo, and became an officer in the U.S. Marines when he was over forty to train young cadets in hand-to-hand combat. The movie begins with the arrival of the Biddle's new butler, John Lawless (Tommy Steele) straight off the boat from Ireland. Lawless serves as a pseudo-narrator through parts of the film. We first meet the Biddles through Lawless' eyes and from time to time he discusses with the audience about the events taking place on screen. Anthony Biddle's daughter Cordy (Lesley Ann Warren) is growing up and wishes to leave for school. Her father is opposed to the idea, but eventually consents. Cordy leaves and soon finds herself in love and engaged to a wealthy New Yorker named Angie Duke (John Davidson). These two love birds are madly in love, but Cordy is from Philadelphia and Angie is from New York and their families live in completely different worlds.
I found THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE to be enjoyable, but in a hit and miss fashion. The sets and costumes are quite lovely, the acting is decent, and the singing and dance numbers are reminiscent of the days of a beautiful by-gone era. I like Fred MacMurray and his role in the film and I got a kick out of Tommy Steele's performance as John Lawless. Actually, most of the cast is quite good. Yet, the film just doesn't stand out. Most of the songs are quite entertaining but other "Fortuosity", "Let's Have a Drink On It", and the bittersweet "It Wont' Be Long" there aren't any memorable tunes. There really isn't much plot to the movie and after awhile some of the antics seem repetitive. Instead of a concise, well-told story, the movie feels more like a series of scenes and sketches that are loosely connected by the relationship between the characters. Such a device often works well in a book, can sometimes be pulled off on stage, but usually doesn't make for a very good movie especially a musical.
THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE is a movie worth watching once. Though it doesn't really standout in any way, it can be seducing with its charm. It's not a movie I'll probably watch again for awhile, but I do want to read and research more about the real-life Anthony Biddle.
Movie Review: A True Story.
Summary: 3 Stars
"The Happiest Millionaire" is not pleasingly perfect in every way. I enjoyed it, but I had to work at it. Some songs of humor. Quite surprisingly, Fred MacMurray, usually stoic (not showing emotion), is a good singer who can carry a high note for some time. His song with Greer Garson, at the end, is good.
The film is more interesting if you know that the film was based upon a true story; there really was a millionaire Mr. Biddle, who owned alligators which froze and thawed, ran a Bible study for reformed drunks, had a boxing ring, practiced Judo, smoked to cure his asthma, and had trouble keeping servants, until he hired a butler from Ireland, all in the book "My Philadelphia Father". Truth is stranger than fiction, so much so, the truth appears unbelievable in the film. When you compare this film to the generally bad television and films of today, it is entertaining. Musicals I recommend solidly ahead of this one are: Disney's "Summer Magic", the 1937 "Maytime", and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".
The same Sherman brothers who wrote the songs for "Mary Poppins", and the same dance choreographer. However, I do not believe Walt was really involved, and you can tell the difference. Mr. Disney was involved in the immense challenge of starting Disney World, secretly buying up land in Florida, running Disneyland in California, planning a ski resort, running the Cal Arts school, running his animation studio, producing several other films, spending more time on vacation with his family, and dying in the advanced stages of lung cancer; he did not live to see this film released. The film is a comedy, with some silliness, needing better plot, more focus, and more grounding stability. The acting is often veiled and distant, with glimpses of joy. Tommy Steele is good as the singing, dancing, butler, puzzled by it all. The opposing wealthy family matriarchs (mother-in-law, grandmother or aunt) singing about their wealthy family being better than the other is funny.
This silly film with a weak script, and without depth, has some fun songs, and humor that is interesting if you know it really is a true story.
There are three formats on Amazon, two of the formats are 20 minutes longer. The third Road Show Edition, is twice as much money as the other two, apparently only for wide-screen. I recommend the cheaper longer version.