You’ve probably heard the rhyme, “Rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes,” but have you heard of the film “Belles on Their Toes”? This movie isn’t really related to that nursery rhyme, which was first published in 1784 in the “Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.” The clever title is referring to young ladies as belles, the French term for beauties.
It’s a story about how a widowed mother raises and cares for her eleven children, five of whom are girls. This is the sequel to “Cheaper by the Dozen,” a 1950 movie starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy which was based on the real-life Gilbreth family. It was adapted from the book of the same name by the family’s oldest son, Frank Jr., and the second-oldest daughter, Ernestine. The sequel included most of the original cast, minus the father (Webb), who died near the end of the first film.
Today’s moment of movie wisdom is from “Belles on Their Toes” (1952). It takes place 80 minutes into the 85-minute film. Dr. Bob Grayson (Jeffrey Hunter), the fiancé of oldest daughter Anne (Jeanne Crain), has just gotten a job in Detroit, and he wants to marry Anne and take her with him. Convinced that it’s Mrs. Gilbreth who is keeping them apart, he berates her for controlling her daughter’s lives. After he has left, Mrs. Gilbreth confronts Anne, knowing that she must have told him something to prompt his calling their family an octopus. When Anne reveals that she said she has to wait to get married so she can help her mother with her younger siblings, Mrs. Gilbreth asks Anne whether she really thinks she has worked so hard to have a bunch of spinster daughters to keep her company in her old age. She assures her daughter that all she has ever wanted for her children is for them to make happy lives for themselves.
Like its predecessor, this movie gives you a glimpse into the joys and difficulties of raising so many children. Lillian Gilbreth (Loy) worked alongside her engineer husband, helping with all of his research and experiments, because she is also an engineer herself. They focused on time management and the most efficient way of performing daily tasks; they also trained young engineers for positions at specific companies.
The first struggle the Gilbreths encounter in “Belles on Their Toes” is keeping the family together after Mr. Gilbreth’s death. Several well-meaning relatives offer to take some of the younger children to raise as their own. They know funds are tight and question whether the widowed mother can care financially and emotionally for her large brood alone. However, the whole family is adamant about staying together; they go to great lengths to make ends meet, including bottling their own root beer. No matter how tight funds get, Tom (Hoagy Carmichael), their faithful servant, refuses to desert the Gilbreths, who have become like his own family. Lillian knows she must get work to provide for her family, but she encounters great prejudice as a female engineer trying to get a job in a male-dominated industry.
The Scene
Whereas “Cheaper by the Dozen” focuses more on the children’s relationship with their parents, “Belles on Their Toes” focuses on the romantic adventures of the three oldest Gilbreth daughters, Anne, Ernestine (Barbara Bates), and Martha (Debra Paget). As the title indicates, the daughters have their share of difficulties in finding the right young men to be their husbands. Their mother gently but wisely guides their courtships. We also see the boys trying to protect their sisters from unworthy beaux, just as their father would have done.Ernestine falls for an oafish college man she meets on their summer vacation to Nantucket, Al Lynch (Martin Milner). Martha is a tomboy who doesn’t start to be interested in parties and beaux until near the end of this film, when she starts going out with classmate, Bubber Beasley (Benny Bartlett). Meanwhile, Anne starts going steady with a young doctor. They first meet him when she mistakes him for a barber when she brings her siblings in to get haircuts. Although he annoys her by keeping up the façade longer than necessary, they soon grow to care for each other.
The scene we’re discussing today takes place after they’ve been going together seriously for a while. Bob wants to plan their future together, but Anne tells him that she can’t get married right away, because she must help her mother so that Ernestine can go to college like she did. Bob is very frustrated, because he feels like Anne isn’t able to do what she wants to with her own life. He says that he’s heard about these big families, which hold onto their children like octopuses and make them stick around to help raise the younger children.
