This is a very funny comedy about the issues of bringing up a new born child and dealing with the expense, duelling grandmothers, officious nurses and sleepless nights. Sounds ordinary on the surface but it's so much more thanks to a witty truthful script and a fabulous ensemble lead by Robert Cummings as papa and Barbara Hale as mama. Next door neighbors Bill Goodwin (Hale's real life husband) and Jeff Donnell are the equivalent of Fred and Ethel Mertz as they argue openly and interfere in everything their neighbors do.
After a craving of banana sandwiches and forgotten lipstick before heading to the hospital, there's Hale's very funny roommate (Bea Benadaret), vain Mona Barrie (Hale's mother whom the baby narrator describes as the poor man's Gloria Swanson) and plain spoken Kathleen Comegys as the arguing grandmothers. You know that Barrie and Comegys are not going to get along when Comegys refers to the diva like Barrie as "granny".
Nurse Cora Witherspoon further insults Berry when she says that usually one of the grandmothers is already deceased. Witherspoon is like an older version of Mary Wickes here, stealing every moment as she declares that the one thing she does better than train babies is to train mommys. And what about the baby? Basically you see a basinet to represent where the baby is.
I could tell only 10 minutes into this film that this was going to be one of my new favorite comedies, and coming from Columbia in the 50's, it reminded me of the "Fuller Brush" films and "A Woman of Distinction" in the way that it took ordinary situations and turned them into outlandish farce that brings real laughs from the belly. Even the props are funny like the clock in the babies room which looks like something you'd see in an Abbott and Costello horror movie spoof.
After a craving of banana sandwiches and forgotten lipstick before heading to the hospital, there's Hale's very funny roommate (Bea Benadaret), vain Mona Barrie (Hale's mother whom the baby narrator describes as the poor man's Gloria Swanson) and plain spoken Kathleen Comegys as the arguing grandmothers. You know that Barrie and Comegys are not going to get along when Comegys refers to the diva like Barrie as "granny".
Nurse Cora Witherspoon further insults Berry when she says that usually one of the grandmothers is already deceased. Witherspoon is like an older version of Mary Wickes here, stealing every moment as she declares that the one thing she does better than train babies is to train mommys. And what about the baby? Basically you see a basinet to represent where the baby is.
I could tell only 10 minutes into this film that this was going to be one of my new favorite comedies, and coming from Columbia in the 50's, it reminded me of the "Fuller Brush" films and "A Woman of Distinction" in the way that it took ordinary situations and turned them into outlandish farce that brings real laughs from the belly. Even the props are funny like the clock in the babies room which looks like something you'd see in an Abbott and Costello horror movie spoof.