Yours, Mine and Ours -- 1968

This is probably one of the last films without a rating that fell under the old production code before the MPAA took over and started rating everything. But it is a sweet little movie that exemplifies all the good parts about going to an older movie like honest subtext and feeling good about life despite whatever circumstances come up.

The long and the short of this film involves a naval officer who decides he wants to spend more time in port to get more time with his ten (yes, ten) children. His wife had passed away fairly recently leading him to get off the sea and into the house. Of course, the kids have difficulty relating to him since he hasn't been home too much in their lives and he sends off the younger two to live with his sister while he sorts out the elder 8. Enter the woman who moves to San Francisco to leave behind memories of her husband who passed away within the past year. She has eight children of her own and is going to work as a nurse on the naval base.

The rest is both standard in plot, but over the top in comedy. As could be expected, the pair hooks up giving them a family of a whopping 18 kids. The sheer numbers make it difficult to relate much of what goes on since the kids, while an attempt is made to give them individuality, are there to support the parents and their relationship. The first half of the movie focuses almost solely on the two aprents and their courting and marriage. The second half goes into the making the two families into one; no small feat for one as large as this.

I've touched on the characters, but to look a ttheir construction, the parents are both fairly well developed. Their conversations are honest and they make perfect sense in wanting to keep the size of their broods secret from each other until ready. The children are given as much as they can get. Rather than full personalities, which would be impossible, the ones that get some focus get individual traits of some kind to play into the larger plot. They're amusing, but really the idea behind them is more important than trying to figure out who each one of them is.

Overall it's a very funny film with some great chemistry between the leads and a highly amusing and original idea underlying them. In today's world, the thought of this "Brady Bunch" extreme would be near unbelievable because of people's seeming indecision in not only marriage, but having children as well. But for this film in that time, it worked out very well.