The Happiest Millionaire *** (1967, Fred MacMurray, Tommy Steele, Greer Garson, John Davidson, Gladys Cooper, Lesley Ann Warren, Geraldine Page, Hermione Baddeley) – Classic Movie Review 8532

Director Norman Tokar’s 1967 The Happiest Millionaire is the last live-action film supervised personally as producer by Walt Disney (uncredited), though Bill Anderson is credited producer.

It is a large-scale musical, with a modern-day Romeo and Juliet-style story as eccentric Philadelphia millionaire Anthony J Drexel Biddle (Fred MacMurray) threatens the romance between his daughter Cordelia (Lesley Ann Warren) or Cordy for short and the son of a rival family, Angie Dale (John Davidson). Happily, lucky young Irish immigrant butler John Lawless (Tommy Steele) is around to bring the two families together.

The Happiest Millionaire is light, lively and entertaining enough, with attractive performances (especially by the formidable actresses Greer Garson as Mrs Biddle, Gladys Cooper as Aunt Mary, Geraldine Page as Mrs Duke and Hermione Baddeley as Mrs Worth) and a cute star alligator called George.

But, nice though it is, the hoped-for special magic of Mary Poppins just is not there this time. The film’s problems start with the vapid story, the 15 songs from the Disney composer brothers Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman, not one of them memorable, and the very modest choreography by Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood.

It runs an overlong 164 minutes but the re-release version runs 159 minutes and the cut version runs 141 minutes.

The Happiest Millionaire is written by A J Carothers (screenplay), based on a New York stage play by Kyle Chrichton, and a book My Philadelphia Father by Cordelia Drexel Biddle, a factual memoir of life in the Philadelphia household of the eccentric rich man Anthony J Drexel Biddle.

Also in the cast are Paul Peterson, Eddie Hodges, Joyce Bulifant, Sean McClory, Aron Kincaid, Larry Merrill, Frances Robinson, Jim McMullan and William Wellman Jr.

It is shot in Technicolor by Edward Colman at  Walt Disney Studios, 500 South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, California.

The Happiest Millionaire was produced on the New York stage by Howard Erskine and Joseph Hayes.

Tommy Steele in The Happiest Millionaire (1967).

By 2019, Tommy Steele’s most recent film is Quincy’s Quest (1979).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8532

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com