This one movie, where almost all the actors, including children had been above par, in reprising the characters. Young, O'hara, Clifton, I always liked due to their calibre, but here others too had chipped in their part, from the village gossip - Appleton (Richard Haydn) - well for a refreshing option a male gossip, of course assisted by his invalid mother (Grace Hampton) to the overbearing and snobbish boss Mr and Mrs Hammond and so on.
But can good acting and even good conceptualisation make up for a bad concept ?
The movie basics are extremely flawed - from the moment Belvedere came on scene. He started acting like the 'man of the house' despite his having accepted a post on the contrary - resident baby sitter and handy person. Only thing he missed was asking the mistress of the home to serve his breakfast and dinner on the bed. That itself would have been unacceptable in any household, whether normal, snobs or any type. In additions, the children falling head over heels for his type is simply not believable. Of course the major flaw, his technique of 'bringing up babies' and 'training' them, along with the dog, to lose their childhood, playfulness is a bit hurting, not only to me as audience, but must to the parents too, however much they might have been harrassed by them earlier, and that training didn't exclude even the baby !
This is one part, which quickly made the movie irritating to 'parental conscience' . I am sure even in those days, the parents or psychologists, won't have advocated these, today anyway it is strictly 'no no' to make the children lose their childhood.
Can't give - just due to the base concept - even a pass mark.
Review of Sitting Pretty
