Sitting Pretty (1948)

SYNOPSIS: Self-styled "genius" is reduced to working for room and board as a live-in babysitter.COMMENT: An extraordinarily popular film in its day, Sitting Pretty had the good fortune to incorporate a tailor-made role for the waspishly caustic Clifton Webb - who was even nominated for a prestigious Hollywood award for Best Actor. He had previously been twice nominated for Best Supporting Actor (for Laura and The Razor's Edge) but once again he was to miss out - this time due to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet! Nevertheless, Sitting Pretty left Shakespeare for dead in the boxoffice stakes and sired two sequels: Mr Belvedere Goes to College and Mr Belvedere Rings the Bell. The comedy holds up rather well, although I said at the time and I say again; Richard Haydn makes a major contribution to the merriment. Webb actually comes on rather late in the piece. It is Haydn and Ed Begley who hold the audience's interest to that point. Young and O'Hara are pretty dull - though they make effective stooges - and their kids are the usual Hollywood brats. It is one of the film's joys that Webb uses them for target practice! Lang's direction is routinely competent but lacks any finesse of style or sophistication. (It always beats me why 20th Century-Fox was known as "the director's studio" - they had such an undistinguished lot of capable but boring hacks under contract: people like Walter Lang, Henry Koster, Henry King, John M. Stahl, Lloyd Bacon, George Seaton, Jean Negulesco. Perhaps King doesn't belong on this list for there are a few others, notably Gregory Ratoff and Edmund Goulding, whose work is equally variable, but how do they compare with Cukor, Wyler, Wellman, Curtiz, Farrow, Wood, Auer, Capra, Minnelli, Wilder, Huston, Walsh or Hitchcock?)OTHER VIEWS: A slick domestic comedy with a truly "original" character in Lyn Belvedere (there is only one "n" in his Christian name, though in the sequels two are adopted). Webb plays him to the "T", aided by a solid support cast headed by Richard Haydn as the snoopiest neighbor ever to hit suburbia. Of course the idea of turning village mores into a scandalous best-seller has been used many times (see The Affairs of Martha) - it wouldn't work anyway as most people couldn't care less about the town in which they're forced to live - but even this cliché does little to lessen the impact of Belvedere himself.

I had never seen this movie before and was curious about it. What a disappointment - there is nothing to like about it - especially Clifton Webbs annoying portrayal of an arrogant know it all jerk. There is nothing funny or humorous , all it had me thinking was why he didn't get his ass kicked and thrown out. The way he treats the kids is mean and awful and the way the whole plot is written out is nothing more than showing how mean spirited and arrogant people can be in using and hurting others. From the rat faced neighbor to the snooty boss and secretaries - this movie is just plain mean and unpleasant. And then they made that awful sitcom with the equally annoying Christopher Hewett playing the 1980's version of Mr Belvedere. 1/10

For his performance in this film, Clifton Webb was nominated for an Academy Award. And, deservedly so. I found his performance to be...well...deliciously tart. In today's world his character in this film would be thought of as acting gay, and reportedly, Webb was (he never married and lived with his mother until her death at 91, resulting in Noël Coward's comment that, "It must be terrible to be orphaned at 71"). But in 1948, the kind of character Webb plays here was mostly considered eccentric. I remember seeing this film on "Saturday Night At The Movies" in the early 1960s, and it's just as hilarious today as it was back then.Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara actually get billing above Webb in this film, and Young (is particularly is good here in a role that will remind you of his "Father Knows Best" persona of a few years later). They play a young couple with 3 boys who are a handful, resulting in them being unable to keep a housekeeper or reliable babysitter. O'Hara advertises for a live-in nanny. They hire Lyn Belvedere, thinking he's a she. Despite their misgivings, they agree to give the self-proclaimed genius a chance, and he quickly wins over the children. Nosey neighbors begin to suspect hanky-panky between Belvedere and O'Hara, and the gossip flies. All the while, Belvedere is writing a tell-all book about the community! The supporting cast does nicely, though is not prominent. Richard Haydn does deserve some praise as the prim and all-too-proper neighbor that's is the root of all the gossip. Haydn often played such roles, although he had some strong roles (including a pivotal one in "The Sound Of Music".This is a gem and would go well on any film buff's DVD shelf.

One of the things I remember having felt just after finishing seeing Sitting Pretty for the first time was intense pain. The sort of pain you get in your cheeks after indulging yourself in a session of heavy, near jaw-disjointing smiling. Whoa. In fact, this film stands out as one of my personal favourites. That kind of film you feel compelled to see once every year -at least- and one of these that would always appear in one of these absolutely annoying, regret-inducing, top-ten film rankings one sometimes is forced to produce upon friends' request.The plot, while not being exactly conventional, doesn't promise anything beyond the average comedy. But then the film relies not in the nature of the situations but in the way they are actually conceived to squeeze as much fun out of every nuance as possible. *Minor spoilers ahead*. Mr. and Mrs. King (Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara) enjoy a quiet, suburban life at Hummingbird Hills, with their three children. As the need for a babysitter becomes apparent, they put an ad in a newspaper which is promptly answered by Lynn Belvedere. Much to their initial puzzlement, Lynn turns out to be a *male* babysitter (Clifton Webb), but his amazing and seemingly endless display of skills makes the initial reluctance of the couple to melt, to such extent he soon becomes someone nearly indispensable to have around. But the suburban life has its drawbacks, and they come in the form of a nosy neighbour, Mr. Appleton –superbly portrayed by the excellent Richard Haydn- whose major activities, apart from gossiping, consist in pushing the wheelchair of her equally meddling mother, and pollinating flowers by means of a feather. The eccentric Belvedere falls like a bomb in the quiet neighbourhood, and soon the gossiping undermines the happiness of the family, propelling the story in a comedic crescendo with a plethora of funny misunderstandings, sizzling dialogues, skeletons frantically going out of almost everyone's closet, up to a fully fulfilling, comically cathartic end.Much of the reason of the film's success relies on the excellent casting. While Maureen O'Hara develops a charming character, full of wit and humour, the much underrated Robert Young renders an equally sparkling performance as the generally genial, but sometimes funnily annoyed because of Belvedere's overwhelming efficiency, American husband. However, the cream of the crop, the absolute star of the show is the awesome Clifton Webb. His Lynn Belvedere is something else, a true milestone in acting – as it had been his creation of Waldo Lydecker in Laura, the classic noir. The perfect timing in saying his dialogues, the little physical nuances here and there, together with that blend of near- contemptuous pompousness with an undergoing sense of humour that he manages to instil within his character, are just fantastic. The supporting roles are equally very well performed, but here the aforesaid Richard Haydn stands out with his unforgettable portrait of the go-between par excellence. Director Walter Lang, of 'The King and I' fame (the musical version, with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr) achieves one of his best films, if not the best hands down.By the way, it's a pity such a classic comedy had still not been released on DVD.-