Subtextually, this film is chilling time capsule portrait of the moment the U.S. lost its innocence. It's not something I ever thought about before, because the movie exists in a time of social shift between old school conservative values and lifestyles and "hippies", or at least more open minded sorts. It doesn't deal with these topics in a self aware or heavy handed way, which makes it great! Aside from the girl's remark, "Oh, cut your hair!" (which could be seen as a bit didactic) it doesn't come off as propaganda of either sort.
One thing I've always loved about this movie is the realism & unflinching pragmatism about the situation. The only caveat to that is that it's still difficult to imagine how they paid for all the kids!
But the happy ending is undermined by the real world history that soon followed. We know that the one who left was going to a doomed situation that would forever shift the consciousness of American society. We know that this was the point at which the long term economic downturn began, with massive deregulation of industry and socioeconomic stratification. Some of us will also think about the people we didn't see in the crowd, because of persistent segregation, or the amount of waste generated by all the disposable packaging a suburban family of this size consumes. It's actually really annoying to not be able to overlook all these things (that the time was oblivious of) because it's no less a great movie and Lucille Ball is an angel and Henry Fonda isn't half bad! Some of the old time blokes in these movies are just teeth grindingly patronizing to the 'dolls' but he was written as a sympathetic man's man and holds up today as old fashioned but good hearted and caring.
Awesome outfits, too. Love this movie. If someone wrote a sequel, it wouldn't be a comedy but rather just as grim as the BBC 7 Up series most likely. Highly recommend, no less!
One thing I've always loved about this movie is the realism & unflinching pragmatism about the situation. The only caveat to that is that it's still difficult to imagine how they paid for all the kids!
But the happy ending is undermined by the real world history that soon followed. We know that the one who left was going to a doomed situation that would forever shift the consciousness of American society. We know that this was the point at which the long term economic downturn began, with massive deregulation of industry and socioeconomic stratification. Some of us will also think about the people we didn't see in the crowd, because of persistent segregation, or the amount of waste generated by all the disposable packaging a suburban family of this size consumes. It's actually really annoying to not be able to overlook all these things (that the time was oblivious of) because it's no less a great movie and Lucille Ball is an angel and Henry Fonda isn't half bad! Some of the old time blokes in these movies are just teeth grindingly patronizing to the 'dolls' but he was written as a sympathetic man's man and holds up today as old fashioned but good hearted and caring.
Awesome outfits, too. Love this movie. If someone wrote a sequel, it wouldn't be a comedy but rather just as grim as the BBC 7 Up series most likely. Highly recommend, no less!