Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Melville Shavelson

Writers:

Bob Carroll Jr. (story)
Madelyn Davis (story)

Release Date:

24 April 1968 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Family

Tagline:

Their wedding night set new attendence records

Plot:

When a widower with 10 children marries a widow with 8, can the 20 of them ever come together as one big happy family...

Plot Keywords:

Widower | Widow | Children | Marriage | Sibling

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Golden Globes. Another 3 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Lucille Ball	...	Helen North Beardsley
Henry Fonda	...	Frank Beardsley
Van Johnson	...	Warrant Officer Darrel Harrison
Louise Troy	...	Madeleine Love
Sidney Miller	...	Dr. Ashford
Tom Bosley	...	Family Doctor
Nancy Howard	...	Nancy Beardsley
Walter Brooke	...	Howard Beardsley
Tim Matheson	...	Mike Beardsley (as Tim Matthieson)
Gil Rogers	...	Rusty Beardsley
Nancy Roth	...	Rosemary Beardsley
Gary Goetzman	...	Greg Beardsley
Morgan Brittany	...	Louise Beardsley (as Suzanne Cupito)
Holly O'Brien	...	Susan Beardsley
Michele Tobin	...	Veronica Beardsley

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:G | Germany:6 | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Alameda, California, USA

Company:

Desilu Productions

Trivia:

During a Barbara Walters interview, Jane Fonda claimed that her father was deeply in love with Lucille Ball and that the two were "very close" during the filming of Yours, Mine and Ours (1968).

Goofs:

Continuity: When the oldest son goes off to Marine Corps boot camp he already has his uniform and sea bag.

Quotes:

Colleen North: [Helen is about to have a baby] I know this is a terrible time to talk about it, but Larry says...
Frank Beardsley: I've got a message for Larry. You tell him this is what it's all about. This is the real happening. If you want to know what love really is, take a look around you.
HelenNorth: What are you two talking about?
Frank Beardsley: Take a good look at your mother.
HelenNorth: Not now!
Frank Beardsley: Yes, now.
[to Colleen]
Frank Beardsley: It's giving life that counts. Until you're ready for it, all the rest is just a big fraud. All the crazy haircuts in the world won't keep it turning. Life isn't a love in, it's the dishes and the orthodontist and the shoe repairman and... ground round instead of roast beef. And I'll tell you something else: it isn't going to a bed with a man that proves you're in love with him; it's getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful everyday world with him that counts.
[Leaving the house, they say good-bye to the little kids]
Frank Beardsley: I suppose having 19 kids is carrying it a bit too far, but if we had it to do over who would we skip... you?
[...]

Movie Connections:

References Peter Pan (1953)

Matheson, Shea and even Bosley made it for me

I've recently seen this movie again and it has aged well, maybe because I didn't recall so much of it when I was little. In my younger years, to see Lucille Ball in anything else made me expect The Lucy Show or Here's Lucy, both of which I watched sunup to sundown. Whether it was Yours, MIne & Ours or Mame, I was looking for the screwy redhead.

In watching it straight thru this time, I enjoyed the actual focus on life at that time and tending to so many kids, such as the grocery shopping, breakfast and laundry time. The dating seemed a bit hokey to me and HOllywooded, but believe it or not, Jane Fonda has revealed on a Barbara Walters interview that there was sparks between her father and Ms. Ball.

Still it was Tim Matheson (the voice of Jonny Quest) and Eric Shea (the voice of Linus Van Pelt) who kept it moving. While Matheson resented the new family and mother, he wasn't hostile to Shea, who was indeed lost in the shuffle and going his own path.

Ball might have been able to conceal her age more had her voice not have been gone as it was, which for some reason makes her seem older anyway.

Still, things like the phone call with one of Fonda's daughters listening in was priceless and truly hilarious, but Ball's conversation with the nun about Shea's last name, was it North or Beardsley now, was clumsy and awkward and really could have been structured better.

I did not realize this was based on a true story, which makes it all the more incredible.

Actually, Sherwood Schwartz had proposed the idea for the Brady Bunch to networks several years before and they wouldn't buy the show until the success of Yours, MIne and Ours and With Six, You Get Eggroll, then the Brady Bunch got the major league green light.

Also "Here's Lucy" was to be similar to Yours, MIne and Ours with her having a bunch of kids, but that was dropped in favor of her two real kids.

And worth noting, ubiquitous Larry Hankin appears as the grocery clerk, Harry. Hankin appears in programs and movies over the next three decades, but may be best recognized as the television Kramer on Seinfeld, when Jerry sold the show within his show.