The Happiest Millionaire
The Happiest Millionaire is a 1967 American musical film starring Fred MacMurray, based upon the true story of Philadelphia millionaire Anthony Drexel Biddle. The film, featuring music by the Sherman Brothers, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design by Bill Thomas. The screenplay by A. J. Carothers was adapted from the play, based on the book My Philadelphia Father by Cordelia Drexel Biddle.[3] Walt Disney acquired the rights to the play in the early 1960s. The film was the last live-action musical film to be produced by Disney before his death on December 15, 1966.
This article is about the film. For the album, see The Happiest Millionaire (album).The Happiest Millionaire
A. J. Carothers
My Philadelphia Father
by Cordelia Drexel Biddle
164 minutes
(Los Angeles premiere)
144 minutes
(New York City premiere)
118 minutes
(general release)
172 minutes
(director's cut)
169 minutes
(Edit on disney+ that does not include the exit music)
United States
English
$5 million[1]
$5 million (U.S./Canada rentals)[2]
Reception[edit]
Writing in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther panned the film: "...the whole picture is vulgar. It is an over-decorated, over-fluffed, over-sentimentalized endeavor to pretend the lace-curtain millionaires are—or were—every bit as folksy as the old prize-fighters and the Irish brawlers in the saloon".[24]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that "... adults will find the plot thin and the characters one-dimensional. Lots of kids will find little to hold their interest except the alligators. The children will wonder how John Davidson could have possibly been cast in such an innocent and naive role when he looks at least 25 years old. I mean, that's a little late to steal your first kiss. As for the musical numbers, I found them eminently forgettable, with the sole exception of a nicely staged Irish reel".[25]
Reviewing the film for Life, Richard Schickel remarked: "What is missing, quite literally, is magic. The movie's length, period, cost, even its eccentric central figure indicate Disney was trying for another Mary Poppins. It desperately needs her magic umbrella to lift MacMurray and the whole project off the ground. But the people who created the highest moments in Poppins with the dance across the rooftops are absent".[26]
Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times stated that the film was "a disappointment" and compared it unfavorably to Mary Poppins: "There is no such unity of interest and identification in The Happiest Millionaire. If there is not really anybody to root against (except maybe Geraldine Page as the tart-tongued Mrs. Duke), there are too many people to root for, and each of them is pursuing his own story-line".[27]