The Milkman


The Milkman is a 1950 American comedy film directed by Charles Barton and starring Donald O'Connor, Jimmy Durante, and Piper Laurie.

Plot

Roger Bradley is the son of the owner of a milk company. He wants to get a job as a milkman at his father's company, but his father denies it because of Roger's after-war trauma: when he gets stressed or frustrated, he quacks like a duck. Roger gets upset at his father and does not see any problem with the quacking. In revenge, he gets a job with his father's arch-rival, Breezy Albright at another milk company. He becomes very successful and quickly falls in love with the boss's daughter, Chris Abbott.

Behind the Scenes

The studio commissary doubled as the milk company in the film. Laurie, O'Connor, and Durante were shooting a scene where Durante stuck his head out of the milk truck and whistled to make the truck move forward. The large crew and about a hundred spectators gathered to watch him work, and when he tried the whistle on the first take, his uppers flew out across the street about 25 feet. "When it landed, everything stopped," Laurie remembered in her autobiography. "Not wanting to acknowledge that it had happened, people tried to pretend they hadn't seen it. Donald and I were frozen. There they were, the half circle of teeth, sitting out there smiling at everyone. Nobody knew what to do. Should somebody pick the damn thing up? After what seemed like an eternity, Jimmy finally jumped out of the truck and scampered over to his teeth. He picked them up, brushed them off, threw them back into his mouth, and jumped back onto the truck as if nothing had happened."

Cast