Yours, Mine and Ours (1968 film)


Yours, Mine and Ours is a 1968 American family comedy film directed by Melville Shavelson and starring Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda and Van Johnson. Before its release, it had three other working titles: The Beardsley Story, Full House, and His, Hers, and Theirs.
It was based loosely on the story of Frank and Helen Beardsley, although Desilu Productions bought the rights to the story long before Helen's autobiographical book Who Gets the Drumstick? was released to bookstores. Screenwriters Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll wrote several I Love Lucy-style stunts that in most cases had no basis in the actual lives of the Beardsley family, before Melville Shavelson and Mort Lachman took over primary writing duties. The film was commercially successful, and even the Beardsleys themselves appreciated it.

Plot

Frank Beardsley is a Navy Chief Warrant Officer, recently detached from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and assigned as project officer for the Fresnel lens glide-slope indicator, or "meatball," that would eventually become standard equipment on all carriers. Helen North is a civilian nurse working in the dispensary at NAS Alameda, the California U. S. Navy base to which Frank is assigned.
Frank meets Helen, first by chance in the commissary on the base and again when Frank brings his distraught teen-age daughter for treatment at the dispensary, where Helen informs him that the young lady is simply growing up in a too-crowded house that lacks a mother's guidance. They immediately hit it off and go on a date, all the while shying away from admitting their respective secrets: Frank has ten children and Helen has eight, from previous marriages ended by their spouses' deaths.
When each finally learns the other's secret, they initially resist their mutual attraction. But Chief Warrant Officer Darrell Harrison is determined to bring them together, so he "fixes up" each of them with a sure-to-be-incompatible . Helen's date is an obstetrician who stands a good head shorter than she ; Frank's date is a "hip" girl who is not only young enough to be his daughter, but is also far too forward for his taste. As the final touch, Harrison makes sure that both dates take place in the same Japanese restaurant. As Harrison fully expects, Frank and Helen end up leaving the restaurant together in his car, with Frank's date sitting uncomfortably between them as they carry on about their children.
Frank and Helen continue to date regularly, and eventually he invites her to dinner in his home. This nearly turns disastrous when Mike, Rusty, and Greg, Frank's three sons, mix hefty doses of gin, scotch, and vodka into Helen's drink. As a result, Helen's behavior turns wild and embarrassing, which Frank cannot comprehend until he catches his sons trying to conceal their laughter. "The court of inquiry is now in session!" he declares, and gets the three to own up and apologize. After this, he announces his intention to marry Helen, adding, "And nobody put anything into my drink."
Most of the children oppose the union at first, regarding each other and their respective stepparents with suspicion. Eventually, however, the 18 children bond into one large blended family, about to increase—Helen becomes pregnant.
Further tension develops between young Philip North and his teacher at the parochial school that he attends: his teacher insists that he use his "legal" name, which remains North even after his mother marries Beardsley. This prompts Helen and Frank to discuss cross-adopting each other's children, who are aghast at the notion of "reburying" their deceased biological parents. The subsequent birth of Joseph John Beardsley finally unites the children, who agree unanimously to adoption under a common surname.
The film ends with the eldest sibling, Mike Beardsley, going off to Camp Pendleton to begin his stint in the United States Marine Corps.

Cast

This film departs in several various ways from the actual lives of Frank and Helen Beardsley and their children. The names of Frank and Helen Beardsley and their children are real; the wedding invitation that appears midway through the film is the actual North-Beardsley wedding invitation. The career of Lieutenant Richard North USN is also described accurately, but briefly: specifically, he was a navigator on the crew of an A-3 Skywarrior that crashed in a routine training flight, killing all aboard, exactly as Helen describes in the film. Frank Beardsley is described correctly as a Navy warrant officer. The "loan-out" of the two youngest Beardsleys is also real, and indeed Michael, Charles, and Gregory Beardsley were determined to see their father marry Helen North as a means of rectifying this situation. The movie correctly describes Frank Beardsley as applying his Navy mind-set to the daunting task of organizing such a large family. Finally, Michael Beardsley did indeed serve a term in the Marine Corps, as did Rusty.
The differences from what Helen Beardsley's book Who Gets the Drumstick? puts forth include the following:
The film also takes dramatic liberties with its depiction of Navy life and flight operations aboard an aircraft carrier:
As much as this film departed from the Beardsleys' actual life, the 2005 remake departed even more significantly.

Production notes

and Lucille Ball take turns providing voice-over narration throughout—and in at least one scene, Van Johnson talks directly to the camera, as does Fonda.
That Lucille Ball would portray Helen Beardsley was never in doubt. But a long line of distinguished actors came under consideration, at one time or another, for the role of Frank Beardsley. They included Desi Arnaz, James Stewart, Fred MacMurray, Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, and John Wayne. Henry Fonda finally accepted, and indeed asked for, the role in a telephone conversation with Robert F. Blumofe in 1967. Ball, who had worked with Fonda before in the 1942 release The Big Street, readily agreed to the casting.
One account says that Ball recalled in 1961 that Desilu Productions first bought the rights to the Beardsley-North story in 1959, even before Helen Beardsley published her biography, but this is highly unlikely because Frank and Helen Beardsley married on September 6, 1961. More likely is the story that Bob Carroll and his wife brought the story of the Beardsley family to Ball's attention after reading it in a local newspaper. However, Mr. Carroll is said to recall his wife mentioning the story in 1960—again, a full year before the Beardsleys were married and probably when Dick North was still alive. In any event, Desilu Productions did secure the rights early on, and Mr. Carroll and Madelyn Pugh began instantly to write a script.
Production suffered multiple interruptions for several reasons. It began in December 1962 after Ball's abortive attempt at a career on the Broadway stage. In 1963, production was halted after the box-office failure of her comedy effort Critic's Choice. Later, she was unhappy with the script presented by Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, precisely because their script overly resembled an I Love Lucy television episode, and commissioned another writer to rewrite the script. Mr. Spigelgass does not seem to have succeeded in breaking free of Lucy's television work, so producer Robert Blumofe hired yet two more writers to make an attempt. When this failed, Blumofe hired Melville Shavelson, who eventually directed. All further rewrite efforts came to an abrupt end at the insistence of United Artists, the film's eventual distributor.
At this point in the production cycle, Helen Beardsley's book Who Gets the Drumstick? was actually released in 1965. Like many film adaptations, exactly how much the book informed the final shooting script is impossible to determine.
Production began in 1967 with Henry Fonda definitely signed on to portray Frank. Mort Lachman, who had been one of Bob Hope's writers, joined the writing team at the recommendation of Shavelson. Leonard Spigelgass received no on-screen writing credit for his efforts in this film.
Filming was done largely on-location in Alameda and San Francisco, California with Mike's high-school graduation being filmed at Grant High School in southern California. The total budget is estimated at $2.5 million, including $1,700,000 for actual filming and post-production.

Reception

The film received lukewarm critical reviews—although Leonard Maltin looked favorably upon it as a "wholesome, 'family' picture" with an excellent script. Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars and praised the performances of Ball and Fonda.
It was a massive commercial success, earning nearly $26 million at the box office and earning over $11 million in rentals. Thus, it was the top-grossing film released by United Artists in 1968. This came about probably on the strength of Lucille Ball's name and performance. Some critics felt that Ball, then in her late 50s, was perhaps 15 years too old for the part of a middle-aged mother.
Frank Beardsley commented that his family enjoyed the film as general entertainment, and acknowledged that perhaps the scriptwriters felt that their screenplay was "a better story" than the truth.
Not anticipating the huge box office returns from the movie, Lucille Ball failed to make appropriate tax shelter and thus saw most of her share going to pay taxes.
The film's success partly inspired network approval of the television series The Brady Bunch; the original script for the series pilot was written well before this movie became a reality.
Among the child actors cast as the Beardsley and North children, several went on to greater success, including Tim Matheson who went on to play the character Otter in the more adult-oriented comedy Animal House; Morgan Brittany played Katherine Wentworth in Dallas from 1981 to 1987; Mitch Vogel appeared in The Reivers with Steve McQueen for which Vogel received a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor nomination in 1970; and Tracy Nelson, daughter of actor/musician Ricky Nelson, who eventually starred in the series Father Dowling Mysteries beside Tom Bosley, who portrayed the doctor in this movie. Also, Matheson and future soap-opera actress Jennifer Leak married in real life in 1968, although they divorced in 1971.
The film currently holds a 50% approval rating with 12 reviews from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Home media

Yours, Mine and Ours was released on VHS by MGM/UA Home Video in 1989, 1994, and 1998. A Laserdisc version was released in 1994, featuring noise reduction applied to the film soundtrack.
It was released to DVD on March 6, 2001. While the DVD was released in full frame, the original film was a widescreen release in the 1:78:1 aspect ratio; this, therefore, constitutes an open matte presentation.
It was released on Blu-ray on September 13, 2016 through Olive Films. The sole special feature is the original movie trailer.

Awards and nominations