The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963)

I'd always avoided seeing this partly because of the title, "The Courtship of Eddy's Father." Seeing the father of some kid named Eddy being courted was not in itself an attractive subject. Then somebody told me that Shirley Jones was yummy in it and an obscure but ovviously puerile impulse forced me to sit through it.It was everything I'd feared. Yes, Shirley Jones was pretty and buoyant as always, but the rest is terribly dated. Marriage for Glenn Ford's handsome, charming, steady, wealthy widower is on the mind of all the women he meets, especially Dina Merrill, wearing a black wig to signal us that she won't win the prize. I guess, to be fair, Stella Stevens as the luscious but stupefied girl in the penny arcade isn't interested in marrying him. The movie wouldn't allow it because it would be infra dig for Ford to show an interest in anyone less wholesome than Shirley Jones.There's no reason this couldn't have been a winner. The presence of a kid, not even a cute red-headed little Ron Howard, who asks all these precocious questions, is not necessarily poison to a movie. And it was directed by Vincente Minelli, who knows how to handle this kind of material with aplomb.The Doris Day series that preceded this -- beginning with "Pillow Talk" -- were an expression of similar mores. Nice women don't put out and they all want to get married and build a home. The Day series had good gags and funny situations, good farces, even the sequels. But this? It has an element of melancholy running through it. Ford isn't a reckless bachelor. He's a sorrowful widower and there's too much revolting sentimentality attached to it, as if the script wanted us to cry instead of just laugh. Maybe most repugnant is the scene in which the kid goes into a screaming fit because the death of his goldfish reminds him of his mother's death. And the laughs just aren't good enough to compensate for this facile tear-jerking. Here's an example of a gag.Stella Steven in a tight skirt is on a date with Jerry Van Dyke. They're bowling and he can't bowl so she tells him she going to show him how to do it. She takes the ball, bends over, and instructs him to keep his hips loose. She wiggles her pert little behind innocently. "Do you see my hips?" He's gawking at them. It could have been worth a smile if Van Dyke had never taken his eyes from her face and said his lines sensibly, as if they had nothing to do with her buns. But, as in a cartoon, his eyes are bulging out and his lines are emphatic: "I DO, I DO!" I'm reminded of a scene in Frank Tashlin's "The Girl Can't Help It." Jayne Mansfield, she of the mammoth mammaries, in a low cut dress and holding two milk bottles at her chest, leans over a table and asks Tom Ewell if he thinks she's "equipped for motherhood." Ewell, with a fixed, agonized smile, never breaks his gaze, as much as he's dying to, but replies in a slow and deliberate manner that, yes -- yes, she is equipped for motherhood. THAT'S funny. Courting somebody's father is a pretty crude business when you get right down to it. It needs to be a little subversive to be really successful. Maybe all comedies do.

Very smooth, plushly produced nonsense about widower father dating different women, unaware that the divorcée next-door might just be the perfect gal for Pop and his precocious young son. Some surprisingly cynical bits amid the sentiment, despite a strange penchant for big events to happen off-screen. Vincente Minnelli's direction isn't as detailed or full-bodied as one might hope (and the picture doesn't flourish as a result), but the lead performances by Glenn Ford, Shirley Jones and young Ronny Howard are first-rate. Stella Stevens is colorful in stop-and-start supporting role that is never allowed to really take-off. Later the basis for a rather melancholy TV series. *** from ****

charming comedy about a handsome widower whose precouious six-year-old son who vets all his potential dates. Glenn Ford is playing tom corbet very convincing and Shirley Jones is wonderful as elizabeth marten. this movie is smooth and wonderful. 8 of 10

I disagree that this movie is sexist at all. In fact, I believe that the character of Tom Corbett is quite different (in a good way) from the fathers of that time. I continue to find this movie extremely entertaining (while ertainly more "fluff" than depth) and nostalgic, due in most part to Ron Howard's superb and engaging performance. The parts where Eddie tells his dad at summer camp that he is in love, and the end of the movie, where Eddie is "practicing" with this dad on what to say to the neighbor to ask her out on a date, are absolutely priceless. Watching Ron Howard in this movie makes you realize why he was sought after as a child actor.