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Happiest Millionaire | 
| Director: Norman Tokar
Actors: Hermione Baddeley, Joyce Bulifant, Gladys Cooper, Greer Garson, Norman Grabowski
Studio: Walt Disney Video
Category: DVD
List Price: CDN$ 24.99
Buy New: CDN$ 16.15
You Save: CDN$ 8.84 (35%)
New (16) Used (1) from CDN$ 16.15
Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 2277
Format: Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: DISD33598D
UPC: 786936233810
EAN: 0786936233810
ASIN: B0001I5632
Theatrical Release Date: 1967
Release Date: June 1, 2004
Availability: Usually ships within 1 - 2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW items direct from the USA. Please allow 8 to 12 business days for delivery. Customs charges may apply.
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From Amazon.com
Reportedly the last feature to be personally shepherded by Walt Disney himself, IThe Happiest Millionaire/I is a stubbornly old-fashioned musical intended to build on the success of IMary Poppins/I, relying on songs and score from Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, the studio's resident songwriting team responsible for the hits of IPoppins/I. Despite that pedigree, and a cast headlined by Fred MacMurray, Greer Garson, Tommy Steele, Geraldine Page, and, in their screen debuts, Lesley Anne Warren and John Davidson, the would-be successor wound up a white elephant.p Released in 1967, a watershed year for youth culture and social upheaval, IThe Happiest Millionaire/I romanticizes Philadelphia's upper crust circa 1916. Its title character, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle (MacMurray), is a militant industrialist urging America's mobilization against Germany, and noteworthy for an eccentric lifestyle that includes his own bible study classes, martial arts training, and (in a lone nod toward any remotely modern social values) a readiness to empower his lovely, headstrong daughter, Cordelia (Warren). p Under Norman Tokar's busy but routine direction, the project does muster moments of charm, and packs its story line with enough twists to partly explain its excessive 144-minute length. But the unintended irony of paeans to capitalism and conservative politics in an era of ISgt. Pepper/I isn't masked by the Shermans' music, which is eminently forgettable, despite the game mugging of Tommy Steele as an immigrant Irish butler. Equally game is MacMurray, but as a singer, he's no Rex Harrison. I--Sam Sutherland/I
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| Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
 NOT THE HAPPIEST, BUT CERTAINLY THE MOST TYPICAL FROM DISNEY June 23, 2004
Nix Pix (Windsor, Ontario, Canada)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Walt Disney's was a visionary film pioneer; he took the fledgling craft of animation and transformed it into an art form of the highest order, and, in the process, altered our collective perception of what childhood is all about. However, occasionally that vision was marred by Disney's own lack of foresight into changing audience tastes. By the end of the 1950s the Walt Disney Studios had incurred huge expenses on Disney's foray into live action films, the birth of his theme park - Disneyland - and the lack luster box office response to his most recent and most expensive animated feature - Sleeping Beauty. Though the old master was set to recoup his losses, the sumptuously mounted, though often dismal, The Happiest Millionaire (released the year after Disney's death) was the personal and financial failure that rounded out Disney's tenure as the mogul of one of Hollywood's great cinema dream factories. br brThroughout the 1950s and 60s road show engagements for movies of distinction were quite common. Road shows were designed to elevate movies to the lofty ambitions of live theater. They usually began with a lush orchestrated prelude, included an intermission half way through, and exit music to escort audiences out of the theater after the final credit sequence. One often dressed up for this sort of premiere event, certainly paid extra to attend and was often provided with a printed program as a keep sake from the occasion. Disney had attempted the road show only once before, on Fantasia (1940) and the result had been an unqualified financial disaster. What a pity then, that The Happiest Millionaire - what should have been an eighty-minute tune-filled - if antiseptic and sexless - melodrama, is over inflated into a gargantuan three hours spectacle that, quite simply, fails to dazzle. pThe plot is a fictionalized account of real life circumstances that concern an eccentric Philadelphia millionaire, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle (Fred MacMurray). He runs a combination Bible and physical fitness college of sorts, loves boxing and keeps alligators in a solarium adjacent his dining room. When immigrant John Lawless (Tommy Steele) becomes Biddle's new butler he does indeed find his new surroundings rather odd. Not that Lawless isn't odd himself - it's just that, unlike Biddle's quirkiness, which can be grating to the point of distraction, Lawless becomes a genuinely loveable reprobate of congenial good humor, thanks to Tommy Steele's remarkable performance. The plot is thread bare to the point of nonexistent. It concerns Biddle's only daughter, Cordelia (Lesley Ann Warren). She's a sort of tomboy desperate to be feminine and sent off to a lady's finishing school where she meets and becomes engaged to New Yorker Angie Duke (John Davidson). Mrs. Duke (Geraldine Page) is social snob but Angie doesn't share her values. He wants to forgo the family business and build automobiles in Detroit. True to Disney form, everything does indeed work out in the end with Angie and Cordelia driving off toward an unintentionally apocalyptic matte painting that depicts the Motor City as something of a cross between Blade Runner and Mary Poppins, a glowering jungle of towering chimneys blackening the skies with the aftershocks of modernity. br brPlot construction is problematic; As Cordelia's mother, Greer Garson is given extremely little to do. One of Disney's good luck charms - Hemione Baddeley has even less of a say. Equally curious is the fact that after the film takes great pains to introduce the Biddle two sons Tony and Livingston (Paul Petersen and Eddie Hodges) - even giving them a song - it suddenly loses interest in their character development by sending them off to school where, as an audience, we forget that they ever existed. pOf course, the plot - such as it is - would be largely forgivable if Disney's resident song writers, the Sherman Brothers had come up with a score worthy of their best endeavors. Tommy Steele opens the show with a bang with, Fortuosity, but the rest of the score does not live up to expectations and, in spots, is painfully sweet and cuddly. Valentine Candy or Boxing Gloves is so coy one wishes for the elegant Tommy Steele to burst into the room and tap dance its treacle into silence. All in all, Steele is remarkably well served by the score, belting out I'll Always Be Irish and several other songs with such austerity and charm that he easily dismisses the awkward lyrics. His choreography by Mark Breaux and Dee Dee Wood showcase Steele's finer points, particularly in the barroom number that closes the second half of the show. Unfortunately, there are no memorable showstoppers that leave one with a sudden urge to run out and buy the soundtrack or even leave the theater humming. pTHE TRANSFER: This re-released DVD of The Happiest Millionaire is about as dismal as the film itself. Everything's present: the Overture, Entr'acte and Exit music, but the transfer is not enhanced for widescreen televisions. Unlike the previously available DVD from Anchor Bay, colors seem somewhat more dated this time around and fine details breaks apart with a considerable amount of pixelization and edge enhancement, especially when viewed on a larger monitor. There are also several cases where mis-registration of the camera negative results in an excessively blurry print - something else absent on Anchor Bay's version. This DVD compresses the entire running time on one side of the disc, which I suspect is the biggest problem. There are no extras, not even the trailer. pBOTTOM LINE: Get the Anchor Bay version instead!
 Best Musical Ever!! April 27, 2004
Lovanda (NC)
This is my favorite movie of all time! I used to rent it over and over when I was in high school. I love the music, the story, the characters, everything. It is funny and wonderful! I loved the fact that Cordelia never could make it past a first date, because she always "knocked out" literally, all of her dates! The alligators and the butler from Ireland make for some hilarious scenes also. Don't wait, get the DVD. You'll love it!!
Fun and silly April 26, 2004
Lotus Scrum (Phoenix, Az United States)
I remember catching this on the Disney channel back in the 80s and LOVED it! It was fun and just down right silly. I loved the music and a woman I had NEVER seen before and fell in love with, Lesley Ann Warren. I soon began to always remember this film due to her. I also really enjoyed most of Fred MacMurray's films from this time period also. A time that films were fun and innocent, or at least MORE innocent then the films now.
We love OLD Disney. August 17, 2003
WE LOVE THIS MOVIE! FUN SONGS! LIKEABLE CHARACTERS! THE BEST THING ABOUT THE MOVIE IS THAT (NO MATTER HOW FAR-FETCHED IT SEEMS) IT REALLY IS A TRUE STORY! ANTHONY BIDDLE REALLY DID KEEP PET ALLIGATORS, THEY REALLY DID FREEZE ONE TIME, HE REALLY DID GO ON A CHOCOLATE CAKE DIET, HE REALLY DID PURSUE THE MILITARY TO USE HIS BIBLE CLASS, ETC. ETC. EVEN DOWN TO HIS EXPRESSIONS....I MIGHT HAVE DIED DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. READ THE BOOK WRITTEN BY HIS DAUGHTER. IT MAKES FOR A FUN COMPARISON. TRUTH REALLY IS STRANGER THAN FICTION!
Fred McMurray and a good musical, what a combo! July 30, 2003
D. Mckinzie (Atoka, OK)
My only criticism of the DVD version of this is that they edited out some of it. I'm used to seeing it with all the movie and it aggravated me that some of it was cut. But it is a very long movie (aren't all musicals?) so that may be why. The story is based on fact (exactly how close it comes I don't know!)and concerns a millionaire who is, to say the least, quite eccentric. He runs off servants constantly, but manages to hire as his butler John Lawless from Ireland, who fits in perfectly. McMurray, who plays the millionaire who hates change, was perfect in this part, as he fights sending his daughter off to finishing school and then fights even harder when she gets engaged. John Davidson plays the fiance (I think this might have been his first big screen role)and is both good-looking and likeable. The songs are good some scenes are memorable indeed, like the high-class duel-of-words between Aunt Mary and Mrs. Duke or the hangover scene when they go to get Angie (Davidson) out of jail. Perhaps most memorable of all is the scene where the alligators have thawed out and the maid finds them -- don't ask, just watch the movie. A very enjoyable musical.
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