Hindsight

Classic kids, or films the kids in your life have to see by 13 or else!

Day 24

Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)  NOT THE LATER VERSION

This movie is so much fun.  Based on the book of the same name, the plot follows the true story of efficiency and motion's expert, Frank Gilbreth Sr.,  Lillian, his wife, and his family of twelve children.  Frank Gilbreth Sr., was a pioneer in this field and often used his family as test subjects, with funny and often embarrassing results. The father is played by Clifton Webb and the mother (Lillian) is played by actress Myrna Loy, two major actors of the time.  Cheaper by the Dozen celebrates a type of nostalgia similar to  By the Light of the Silvery Moon and On Moonlight Bay; films that also focus on smaller towns, larger families and strict fathers, and as such are products very much of their time, the early 1950s.  The children are led by oldest, Ann, played by Jeanie Crain, whose character struggles to attain some independence, even though her father is a total prude.  The way the film handles dating is absurd, but then that is the point. 

Theme:  Family, work, efficiency, discipline, love, popularity, 1920s fashion.

Media Literacy questions:  What are some of the efficiency strategies the father created?  What are the goals of the children?  What makes movie very much a film of the 1950s?  

Trivia:  After Frank Gilbreth passed away, Lillian Gibreth went on to become an successful efficiency expert in her own right.