1967 Directed by Norman Tokar
A happy and unbelievably lucky young Irish immigrant, John Lawless, lands a job as the butler of an unconventional millionaire, Biddle. His daughter, Cordelia Drexel Biddle, tires of the unusual antics of her father--especially since the nice young men around town all fear him. Wouldn't you fear a father-in-law that keeps alligators for pets and teaches boxing at his daily Bible classes?
Il Più Felice Dei Miliardari, Der glücklichste Millionär, El más feliz millonario, Le Plus Heureux des milliardaires, המיליונר המאושר ביותר, Il più felice dei miliardari, 괴짜 백만장자, De Gelukkigste Der Miljardairs, Quando o Coração Não Envelhece, Quando o Coração não Envelhece, Самый счастливый миллионер
UKU
London
USA
UK
USA
I didn’t realize just how star-studded this was until the credits started rolling 🙈 This is one of those movies that feels like goes on forever.. which is fine. But it was quite the chore to finish if I’m being honest. ALL of the songs by the Sherman Brothers are incredibly catchy though. Leave it to them to spruce a movie up!
I remember in the '90s there were some articles about how movies were getting way longer, and blockbusters have certainly been on a gradual stretch since then, but for real, did they forget about the 1960s? Everything from musicals to awards bait drama to basic family flicks like this were around 3 hours long or more! Never was Hollywood more indulgent. This movie is 172 minutes long - only 5 minutes shy of "The Godfather". It lasts longer than "2001: A Space Odyssey" did. You could watch the movie "High Noon" twice before you even finish this! But what the movie lacks in substance and, well any justifiable content really, it at least recuperates in quantity of source material. In…
oh god, it took me all day to finish this film because of all the times I had to pause it to take screenshots of Greer Garson
Pros
- It has Greer Garson
- Greer Garson is as glorious and magnificent as she was in the 40s 💘
- Cute songs
- it has eccentric people with alligators as pets!!
- Fred MacMurrays beautiful singing voice
- Greer and Gladys Cooper together again
- Greer and Fred's musical at the end <3
Cons
- How dare they hire Greer Garson and give her so little to do.
- Annoying teenagers
- Too mf long
- Wrong focus!! instead of focusing so much on the daughter, it could have focused more on the mother 🙄
Anyway... even though I'm not a fan of musicals, this turned out to be very entertaining (thanks to Greer)
I'm about an hour into this Technicolor chastity belt and there's still almost two hours left... Yeah, I don't think I'm going to finish this. I came for Fred MacMurray and Greer Garson, their only movie together, but Jesus Christ, I think this might be the worst musical ever made. There is NO plot to this drivel, the characters have NO motivation other than to do a musical number every other minute, and I do mean every other minute and about the most banal subjects; being Irish, flirting, the city of Detroit, having a daughter BUT Gladys Cooper and Geraldine Page do have an epic showdown via song about who's higher class (never challenge Gladys Cooper to this). Then there's the…
Some thoughts:
1) First time I checked to see how much was left in this 170-minute film? 27 minutes in.
2) The title is a lie, because Fred MacMurray is the Grumpiest Millionaire.
2a) He's only happy twice in the entire movie. The first is when he beats up on some US Marine in a boxing match, and the second is when John Davidson bests him using jujitsu. Physical violence is the only thing that reminds the Happiest Millionaire that he's alive.
3) Lesley Ann Warren is supposed to be a tomboy at the start, but this is shown only by the fact that she wears the same sweatshirt as her dad and brothers.
4) Alligators aren't nearly as amusing…
let me start off by saying this: the five stars are definetely not for everyone.
this was so much fun, with musical numbers, choreographies, and just sappy and silly family fun, which really lit the day up for me...
also greer’s hair in technicolor is literally a blesssing, can i add that this character is as libra as a person can get-
Tried watching this last night but had a hard time getting into because of outside distractions and to be honest was struggling to stay focused as I was kind of drugged up as less than a week out from a total knee replacement. But decided to give it another go tonight since I’ve never seen it and generally like the nostalgia of old movies. It’s still kind of hard to follow the storyline but it was still a fun watch with a fun soundtrack. Not sure it’s one I’ll go back to watch again but it was worth taking the time to watch it tonight.
"George was easily the best character."
-Haley (my girlfriend)
As everyone says it is just too long and doesn't have the greatest pacing but it's such a sweet movie I grew up on. I can sing all the songs and know the movie so well it's a very comforting one for me even if I only watch it once every like 5 years.
Very funny watching this right after Society though.
