Movie of the Week XVI

The Happiest Millionaire (1967)

I watched this musical when I was but a wee child and then rediscovered it a few years ago thanks to Netflix. It was actually one of the first movies I watched at Duke, which is fitting as the movie is actually about members of the Duke family! The movie is based on a true story--the life of Philadelphia millionaire Anthony J. Drexel Biddle. The screenplay is based on a play that is based on a book that Biddle's daughter wrote, entitled My Philadelphia Father. That daughter is Cordelia Drexel Biddle who became Cordelia Drexel Biddle Duke when she married Angier Buchanan Duke. Biddle Music Building, anyone? That is from this family. Oddly enough, one of Cordelia's brothers married Angier's sister, making a Duke Biddle instead of a Biddle Duke. That pair are the parents of Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans. Lots of names!

Abbreviated Duke family tree: Angier was one of Benjamin Duke's children, (who was the son of Washington Duke and the brother of James B. Duke, the one who endowed Duke University in 1924). Angier was the cousin of Doris Duke. There is an Angier Buchanan Duke scholarship, the AB Duke, and a BN Duke in honor of his father. I believe Angier drowned in 1923.

Hopefully that was not totally boring for non-Duke people. I found it rather amazing when I realized that the Duke boy in the movie and the Cordelia he courts are those Dukes and Biddles! Especially since I was watching the movie in my dorm room at Duke, right across the quad from the Biddle Music Building and the statue of B.N. Duke seated in his arm-chair.

So...about the movie! It is a Disney film, so it has the same fun feeling as Swiss Family Robinson (1960), Pollyanna (1960), and Mary Poppins (1964). Trivia: The Happiest Millionaire happens to be the last live-action film that Walt Disney actually produced. It was the last movie he worked on, and he died before it was released.

The movie is about the Drexel Biddles, especially Mr. Biddle, but it veers off into a romance between Cordelia and Angier Duke. (As you can see in this poster, the emphasis is on Cordelia and Angier, compared to the alligator/butler/Mr. Biddle of the poster at the beginning of this post.)

The narrator of the film is an Irish butler who arrives at the mansion in Philadelphia and is immediately overwhelmed and yet intrigued by the craziness.

Mr. Biddle (Fred MacMurray) teaches a Boxing and Bible school in the stable and keeps alligators in the conservatory. He is delightfully unconventional. I love him in 1930s screwball comedies, and he is good in this, too. Thirty years later.

Mrs. Biddle (Greer Garson) mainly smiles at his antics. Garson was a marvelous and marvelously popular actress in the 1940s (especially in WWII movies.) She played a great Elizabeth Bennett opposite Laurence Olivier's Darcy in a 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice, and she won a Best Actress Oscar for Mrs. Miniver in 1942.

Here are Mr. and Mrs. Biddle. A bit unfair to put this picture next to their more youthful ones...

When we meet Cordelia (Lesley Ann Warren) she is quite the tomboy. To remedy the situation she is reluctantly sent to boarding school to grow up and be "finished."

Her trashy blonde roommate teaches her how to flirt in a "Bye-yum-pum-pum" number involving plenty of strutting, hip shaking, mysterious glances, and references to Theda Bara, the sort of scary silent film star "vamp" who was popular in the teens. This movie takes place in 1917, by the way.

Cordelia goes to a party, armed with her new flirtation techniques, and guess who she meets? A dashing boy by the name of Duke! Angier (John Davidson) is adorable and really wants to go to Detroit and get involved in automobiles instead of going into that little family business of tobacco. Cordelia and Angier fall in love...awww.

There are some sweet songs then the requisite barriers to their love appear. Mr. Biddle doesn't want his little girl to leave (she is only 17!) and Mrs. Duke is not sure the Biddles are good enough for her son. Then Angier gets pushed into giving up on his dreams of Detroit and Cordelia gets tired of the social pressure, and the alligators escape...you know, the usual.

There aren't any fabulous songs that have become part of the classics catalog, but they are fun. The characters are wacky and the setting of the film is unusual and fun, too. If the romance doesn't grab you, there are lots of other things going on. The alligators' escape is rather amusing, and quite terrifying (to me), and the butler is a fun character. There is a nice bar brawl, too.

Sarah Duke, Angier's mother, comes off just terribly in this movie. She is snobby and rude and uptight, and she almost prevents true love! But she can't have been that bad in real life since the Duke Gardens are named after her.

Angier was also not quite as adorable as he is in the movie. This is his portrait.

I do not know if Angier really did want to go to Detroit or how accurate any of this is, beyond the fact that Cordelia and Angier did get married in real life. But it is interesting to ponder.

The Happiest Millionaire is fun and light like coconut cake. Yum. It becomes more interesting if you are at all into the Duke family or Duke University. There aren't a lot of (or any) other musical comedies based on the founders of my alma mater, so I think the movie is pretty cool. Great actors (though Lesley Ann Warren's spineless Rodger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella bugs me) and Oscar nominated costumes and a lovely mansion crawling with reptiles.

So if you are a Dukie, or are not that lucky but enjoyed The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), The Parent Trap (1961), The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit (1968) (love it!) or were totally creeped out by The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964) (thanks a lot, Mom) you might enjoy The Happiest Millionaire.