FATHER'S LITTLE DIVIDEND (1951)
Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 81 Minutes 41 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA Dual-Mono 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: B&W 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.37:1)
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Bennett, Billie Burke, Moroni Olson, Don Taylor, Hayden Rorke, Richard Rober
In this comedy-sequel to Father of the Bride (1950) reunites director Vincente Minnelli (The Courtship of Eddie's Father) with the main cast, we have patriarch Stanley and (Spencer Tracy, Old Man and the Sea), his wife Ellie Banks (Joan Bennett, Suspiria) and their daughter Kay (Liz Taylor, Identikit), who was wed in the previous film to Buckley Dunstable (Don Taylor, Love Slaves of the Amazons). At the start of this film the Banks are invited to dinner with their daughter and her husband, where they announce that she's having a baby! Mother Ellie is over-the-moon at the prospect of being a granny, but poor Stanley is less enthused, the thought of being a grandpa being a sure sign that he's aging, and no longer a young man, and he hates it. When his wife tries to persuade him to let her daughter and hubby move into their house he adamantly says no way, and she is a bit crushed when Buckley's well-to-do mother and father
Herbert (Billie Burke, who wasGlenda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz) and Doris Dunstable (Moroni Olson, the voice of Magic Mirror from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) offer instead, fearing that she will lose her daughter and the grand baby to the in-laws. To her relief they turn them down, preferring instead to take out a mortgage and get a small place all their own.
What follows is a solid family comedy about in-laws battling over influence over the expectant parents and their yet to be born baby, with the grampas debating which college it should attend, which causes the newlyweds no shortage of stress resulting conflict from all sides. There's baby shower shenanigans, a brief split-up between the young couple when unfounded jealousy is introduced, a difference of opinions about Kay's physician r. Andrew Nordell (Hayden Rorke, When World's Collide) and his new-age approach to motherhood, but when the baby is born things get better for everyone until Kay and Buckley leave town for a trip and leave the six-month old kid with her parents, which is when Stanley takes the kids for a stroller walk through the park and gets caught up in a friendly game of football with the neighborhood kids, and doesn't notice that the kids has disappeared, leaving him in a panic, but he keeps it secret from his wife, instead running tot he police station where
Sgt. (Richard Rober, The Savage) enjoys giving him the third degree, all the while well aware that the kid is fine and in the room next door being spoiled by a roomful of baby-crazy cops.
It ends with on a sweet note with Stanley truly coming around to the idea of being a grandpa, culminating at a baby-naming baptism at a church. I found this sequel quite charming, but it's not the same warm-hearted, satisfying comedy as Father of the Bride; feeling very much like the rushed sequel that it was after the big box office of the first film, but it's such a solid cast and the vignette style comedy of it all works well enough, and it's handsomely shot by cinematographer John Alton (The Amazing Mr. X) who also shot Father of the Bride.
Audio/Video: Father's Little Dividend (1951) arrives on Blu-ray sourced from a 4K scan of the OCN, presented in 1.37:1 fullscreen in 1080p HD. This is another wonderful restoration from WAC with appreciable levels of fine film grain, pleasing grayscale and contrast, and black levels are strong with crushing. Its a relatively sharp image, a few scenes look a tad soft, but this looks like its inherent to the original lensing. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with optional English subtitles. The track is mostly clean and free of issues, only some minor sibilance is a few spot, but otherwise a solid track that sounds authentically vintage.
No film-related extras, but as we often do we get a pair of cartoons, this time around a pair of classic Tom and Jerry tools via "Just Ducky" and "Jerry and the Goldfish", boyh in HD, plus the 9-min Pete Smith comedy-doc "Bargain Madness", which as a product of its era is quite a sexist relic and might actually be upsetting, or at the very least, eye-rolling. There's also a trailer for the film. The single disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the original illustrated movie poster, which is also replicated on the Blu-ray disc.
Special Features:
- Tom & Jerry Cartoons: Just Ducky (6:50) Had and Jerry and the Goldfish (7:22) HD
- Pete Smith Specialty: Bargain Madness (9.29)
- Original Theatrical Trailer (3:49)
Screenshots from the WAC Blu-ray:
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