Cheaper by the Dozen (1950 film)

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Cheaper by the Dozen
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Directed by	Walter Lang
Produced by	Lamar Trotti
Starring	Clifton Webb, Myrna Loy, Jeanne Crain, Betty Lynn
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	April 17, 1950 (USA)
Running time	85 min.
Language	English
Followed by	Belles on Their Toes
Allmovie profile

The film was based upon the 1948 book Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey which told of growing up in a family with twelve children.

Their parents were time and motion study and efficiency experts Frank Bunker Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth. The title comes from one of Gilbreth's favorite jokes which played out in the movie that when he and his family were out driving and stopped at a red light, a pedestrian would ask "Hey, Mister! How come you got so many kids?" Gilbreth would pretend to ponder the question carefully, and then, just as the light turned green, would say "Well, they come cheaper by the dozen, you know," and drive off. In the book Frank Gilbreth died of a heart attack while talking to his wife on the telephone; in the movie when his wife answers the telephone, there is no reply on the other end of the line, although she is told by the operator she is still connected.

Based on the success of Cheaper by the Dozen, Gilbreth and Carey wrote a follow-up to their book entitled Belles on Their Toes which was also made into a movie by 20th Century Fox.

[edit] Cheaper by the Dozen (2003)

Cheaper by the Dozen from 2003 is not, in fact, a straight remake of this movie. The similarity between that movie and this Cheaper by the Dozen book and film lies in the fact that story features a family of twelve children, but the modern version does not have the melancholy ending of the 1950 release.