Customer Reviews

Father Was a Fullback [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a warm and amusing film that rates high as a film you can enjoy with the entire family. Mary Loos and Richard Sale had a hand in the screenplay and once again a young Natalie Wood shows how talented she was as a child star. The versatile Fred MacMurray and Maureen O'Hara have a warm domestic husband and wife feel and Betty Lynn is very good as their oldest daughter, who as neighbor Jim Backus explains: "Feels like Lana Turner on the inside, but looks like Connie Cooper on the outside."

College football coach George Cooper (MacMurray) has led State U to a perfect record. But all losses and no wins makes dad a bit cranky! Natalie Wood is just terrific as his youngest daughter Ellen, a very smart tomboy handfull with a vocabulary well beyond her years. She calls her dad "Coach," but his oldest barely calls him anything, as her self consciousness over her appearance and lack of interest from the male of the species has left her an emotional mess.

Her dad doesn't quite know what to do so, of course, does exactly the wrong thing in talking his neighbor Jim Backus into pretending to be an interested boy giving her a call. This naturally backfires and makes everything worse when Backus, her little sis Ellen and just about everyone else sends over a boy posing as the smitten college man!

Connie proceeds in melodramatic fashion to write a story for the rag, True Confessions, about a young girl whose seemingly ordinary life hides her secret identity as a bubble dancer! While causing her beleaguered dad some embarrassment, it may just get her the attention she needs, and her dad a lock on the best high school player in the country.

This is a warm family film with some nice touches and situations all parents can identify with. Thelma Ritter has some nice moments as the Cooper's maid, always betting against Coach's team, and cleaning up! There is a little something for everyone here, with Natalie Wood a particular standout as the memorable Ellen. She received the child of the year award shortly after this film's release. A great pick for a family night with some popcorn and milk duds.

Fred MacMurray stars as Football Coach dealing with the trials and tribulations of both football and family life also co-starring Maureen O'Hara and Jim Backus.It's a very pleasant,light football comedy that's well worth watching!!

We loved it and laughed all the way through it. I hope a real coach
doesn't have to go through all the antics that Fred MacMurray went
through. You have to like Fred MacMurray to really appreciate
this movie. I guess what made us laugh most were the teens. Our
daughter was the same way. I wasn't sure either of us would live
through those times.

Here's another classic movie in which I enjoyed the corny expressions of the day. Usually I hear those most notably in the early 1930s films but there is lot of it here, too, many of them coming from little Natalie Wood.

Betty Lynn, playing older sister "Connie" to young "Ellen" (Wood), also is good in her kooky role. Fred MacMurray and Maureen O'Hara play the parents, "George and Elizabeth Cooper." This really isn't a football story, despite the title. It's a screwball family-type comedy, many of which I never cared for me, but this has good charm and humor. MacMurray is his normal likable self, as when he played in the early Disney films such as "The Absent Minded Professor."

Since MacMurray plays a football coach, there is some gridiron storyline in here, and it's unique because of the different-kind of ending regarding his team.

This movie has a neat twist at the end of it, too. Not well-known, with me being only the fourth reviewer here, this a fun family movie that isn't getting its due. Maybe if they put it out on DVD, more people would notice.

Fred MacMurray at his comedic best. Maureen O'Hara plays his wife - but it is Fred's movie from start to finish.