This film oozes charm and warmth with the feel of an America that never really existed like the Carvel of Andy Hardy or the England of Quiet Wedding. For many people this was the start of Clifton Webb's career, for slightly older filmgoers his career began four years previously with his Waldo Lydecker in Laura, but for seriously old Broadway buffs he began as an accomplished and debonair song-and-dance man a quarter of a century earlier (he was, for example, in Cole Porter's first Broadway Show, See America First (a flop) in 1916 and in 1937 he introduced Porter's At Long Last Love. With Lynn Belvedere the role and the man came together triumphantly and ever after he played only leads. We should give at least a nod in passing to Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara, who actually get top-billing and Richard Hadyn as the 'old woman' gossip but it's Webb's movie from the very first frame in which he appears.
Review of Sitting Pretty
