The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963)

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Having only seen the sitcom that was made for television, we decided to take a look at the 1963 original film directed by none other than Vincente Minnelli, a man that almost always delivered. It's sad to see that neither Mr. Minnelli, nor the screen adapter, John Gay, had any clear ideas about what to make of the material. The movie could have done much more, but ends up as a typical comedy of that period.Tom Corbett, a widower with a young son, Eddie, is at the center of the story. Being still relatively young, Tom is the object of desire by women that are looking for a husband. The problem is that it's obvious the girl next door, Elizabeth, is really the one for him from the moment we set our eyes on her. Eddie, who is going through some bereavement pains, has a problem, accepting his mother's death.Tom and Elizabeth irritate one another when they are together. This is part of what will become a match made in heaven, or so we think, but no, Tom decides to pursue someone else, Rita, who is into fashion, and clearly the wrong woman to bring home to Eddie. That becomes quite clear when Rita suggests to send Eddie to be with relatives for a while when they get married. This suggestion is what triggers Tom to realize how wonderful Elizabeth is after all.Glenn Ford was good as Tom. Mr. Ford always gave an honest performance, as he does here. The lovely Shirley Jones is perfect as Elizabeth. It is however Dina Merrill who makes is a joy to watch her as Rita. Ms. Merrill is an actress that deserved much better parts. She was radiantly beautiful and projects such an elegant figure in the movie. Ron Howard, was at a cute stage of his career. Roberta Sherwood is fun as the housekeeper.This is a film to watch as a curiosity. Vincente Minnelli's direction doesn't go anywhere.

Dina Merrill should have had a much more successful screen career. She is a beautiful, intelligent, warm, extremely credible actress. Perhaps her very strong resemblance to Grace Kelly worked against her. In this film, "The Courtship of Eddie's Father," someone had the dumb idea to make her a brunette, probably because the lead actress, Shirley Jones, was also a blonde. For Merrill, this is a nothing role which she brings a great deal more to than it deserves. The rest of the cast is good, especially Ron(nie) Howard, although Glenn Ford is, as usual, low-key to the point of monotony; and Jerry Van Dyke proves that the same genes don't necessarily produce comic geniuses in a family.

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 ****

A "heartwarming comedy"? Actually, it's rather chilling in its extremely dated weirdness. And not too much of a comedy either. It's fascinating in the way it's totally NOT what you'd think it would be. I at least thought little Eddie would be doing some cutesy matchmaking with the three prospects (blonde, redhead, and brunette)and creating the same sort of domestic comedy of errors you find in THE PARENT TRAP. But the relationships and storylines are strangely separate (especially the one featuring the ditsy Stella Stevens character, who should have been called Holly Golightly Lite). Little Ronnie Howard was one of the cutest Hollywood child actors and if not one of the best little actors, one of the most endearingly natural. The running bit about the "skinny eyes" of the bad ladies is a gem. When Glenn Ford quotes it angrily in a serious scene it's honestly hilarious. The best thing you can say about the movie is that it's uniquely true-to-life in its mixture of tragedy and whimsy and grief and yuks. Or is that the worst? The whole thing just seems so "off". Take the scene with the dead goldfish and little Eddie's screeching. Funny for four seconds than disturbing, even shocking, in the way it plays out for three minutes. Then there's the fact that Ford has been a widower for only a week or two when the matchmaking zaniness starts. The way that his grief is either crassly patronized or totally ignored. Minnelli's elegant camerawork seems jarringly ill-suited to the genre in spots. Ford makes Eddie's Father an idiosyncratically edgy and fidgety not-all-there nuerotic. Quite different from the stalwart and wise and only slightly goofy generic American Pop you imagine just from the title. (Similar to the one Brian Keith played in THE PARENT TRAP.) A must-see for nostalgic boomers just for the art direction. Dig that indigo blue on Dina Merrill's walls! As for Ford's final choice, let's just say that Eddie, in the wisdom of his six years, might have goofed.