Review of Belles on Their Toes (1952) by Edith N — 26 Jun 2007

Once again, not a good movie. A better movie, however, than the sequel to the remake of [i]Cheaper by the Dozen[/i]. (Which we'll get to soonish; we're almost there.) At least this vaguely approximately resembles the real actions of the real Gilbreth family. And yes, these books really are the autobiographies of two of the children from the family.

This second movie, however, actually has more in common with the [i]first[/i] book than the second one. The newsreel story, for example, happens while the children's father is still alive. The tormenting of boyfriends is from that time, too. (Imagine being a teenage girl with five younger brothers and nearly as many younger sisters and trying to have any kind of social life!).

The movie leaves out the important piece of information imparted in the book, that the second daughter (Mary) died of diphtheria when she was six. This is one of the diseases children get immunized against now, [i]because[/i] children died of it pretty regularly 100 years ago. As it stands, the movie refers to the dozen children, but you only see eleven.

Actually, I've read the first book often enough so that I remember all the girls' names pretty easily. Ann, Mary, Martha, Ernestine, Lily, and Jane. The boys, who I usually forget two or three of, are Frank Jr., Bob, Jack, William, Fred, and Dan. Most of them are family names; Bob was named after Robert Frost. It helps, of course, that Dr. Lillian Gilbreth came from a big family herself; more names to steal.

Also, Dr. Mrs. Gilbreth invented the pedal-top trashcan, the kind where you step on the little lever and the lid flips open. The advantages of efficiency experts, huh?