Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)

Lucille Ball was the main draw for me - and I'd recently seen "Cheaper by the Dozen" another huge-family comedy. I missed it earlier this year when it deleted off my Tivo before I could watch it so I created a wish list just so I could catch it again.



That's how much I wanted to see it. Past tense. Now that it's on my Tivo, I actually haven't even finished watching it, because it's SOOOOO SLOWWWWW.

First of all, there are two narrators narrating long sequences of b-roll. There are clever editing effects which is actually always interesting for me (oh they could split screens three ways in the sixties, really?) but usually doesn't contribute to the plot or the story.

The two main characters are older (widow and widower) and their self-declared "war" on their own children (announced during voice over #1) actually reveals a lot to me about why my parents resented their parents in 1968.

They seem to be trying to create moments of physical comedy for Lucille Ball, which is actually just kind of sad because it's really a plot in which the parents make more sense as the "straight man" characters against the antics of the EIGHTEEN children.

Yes, that's right, eighteen. When they get married, predictably, about halfway through the movie (like I said, it's SLOOOOWWWW) I was trying to guess if that was a Catholic ceremony - why was I guessing - who else would have eight or ten children? Not Episcopalians, that's for sure!

So many things about this movie just make me go "hmmmm" that I was tempted to write a rap song about it. Just kidding.

Still haven't' finished watching (though I plan to, it was pleasingly bizarre and intriguing, in a way).

~*~~***~~*~

In the second act, it gets even worse/better as little Phillip starts HIS voice over! Most excellently bad! Lucille Ball picks a fight with a nun, and angry children leave dinner (the horror!) saying "EXCUSE ME!" as if it meant "fuck you"!

I've decided this is the ultimate Brady Bunch episode. In fact, which came first, this or the Brady Bunch? I'm not sure - it seems very similar except that LB plays both Carol AND Alice.

One star.
Not worth renting. Ok for a slow night. Might also work as a kind of cinematic birth control device. LB uses her children this way, saying to an unwanted date "I AM THE MOTHER OF EIGHT CHILDREN". Yeah, Lucy, that IS a turn-off to most guys.