Belles on their Toes (1952)

The true to life sequel to Cheaper by the Dozen(1950) takes an unusual (for the time, but maybe also still for the present day) look a widowed single mother on her own who, eschewing interfering family support, puts a tribe of eleven children thru college.

Flashing back from the youngest’s graduation a worn-out Dr. Lillian M. Gilbreth (Myrna Loy in old makeup) recalls a time of family sacrifice where they had to move to a rundown home, and where a lot of canned beans were eaten and to get some animal protein in them they had to commandeer their more affluent neighbors’ beach barbecue party.

Despite the presence of boys, this story is more female centered (somewhat justifying the title,) and so we have young romance in the air amidst diegetic song and dance (the movie should be able to count as a Musical,) but also older children feeling they must sacrifice their lives for the sake of their younger siblings.

The trials and tribulations of a female professional of the time (and beyond) are also well illustrated.

No one will take the mother seriously enough to hire her; and, once her luck improves and she gets a job teaching engineering, she is kicked out of an all-male club where she was to speak, her gender mistaken by those who called on her to do so.

Some possible romance with her employer is hinted at, but is interrupted by her busy family life, and we never see what develops of it. Did or did they not ever get together? We never find out, even when we see that there is an, at least platonic, mutual respect relationship between the two develop.

It’s curious seeing Loy cast as the working, professional head of a family after so many other contrasting Screwball Comedies roles where she is a single member of the idle rich; or, where there’s no real need to show what these comfortably living characters do to earn their bread.

Despite being comprised by a series of romances and near romances, the film could easily still be construed as a proto-feminist tale (though this is hardly Antonia’s Line) and it’s surprising it hasn’t been more embraced by politically-minded audiences.

Also with Jeanne Crain, Barbara Bates, Debra Paget, Robert Arthur, Carol Nugent, Tommy Ivo, Jimmy Hunt, Anthony Sydes, Jeffrey Hunter and Edward Arnold.