Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)

Genre: Comedy

Directed by: Melville Shavelson

Starring: Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda

Running time: 111 minutes

Frank, a recently detached widower Navy Officer, meets Helen, a widow herself. Between the two of them, they have 18 kids. Is that too much baggage for two people to start a life together? Maybe not.

This film was the subject of a 2005 remake, starring Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo, which I have recently reviewed on here.

With Lucille Ball, we get a certain dose of “I Love Lucy” slapstick comedy here and it feels a little over-the-top. It felt odd to see her in this kind of role, and she seemed a little out of place to me. I simply didn’t feel the chemistry between Ball and Fonda.

A lot more emphasis was put in the original on getting these two characters together. In the remake, they were high school sweethearts, but, in the original, they are strangers. I think that bogged down the story in the beginning, and it is a definite improvement the remake made in my opinion. Once the ball started rolling, story-wise, it improved a bit, but there was too much emphasis put on physical comedy and on illustrating the size of the family.

I must say I was amazed by the level of comedy displayed considering the era the film was made in. Some of the humor must have been seen as risqué at that point in time. Overall, this is a very average film. Some cuteness involved, but nothing memorable.

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