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January 12, 2004
Cheaper by the Dozen
I went to see Cheaper By The Dozen on Saturday afternoon with my better half, master six and various relatives (including Aussie Courier) - we left miss three with my mum. The main reasons for going was (a) the theatre was air-conditioned, (b) the movie was the only G (general) rated movie available and (c) we had all grown up with the original book.
Well let me start by saying that this movie has exactly six things in common with the original story and four of those things are the words in the title (the other two are the maiden name of the mother and the number of children mentioned). That was the first disappointment. The second was the occupation of the father - in the book (and real life) the father was an "efficiency expert", in the movie he was a football coach (and it wasn't even real football). This is apparently a game that involves padding up and running into people and playing two games in a season (at least that's how many the stallions played).
Apart from that the movie was fun. It was humorous in parts but really aimed at the younger kids. There was some teenage angst but that did not spoil the movie. There were some activities that we needed to immediately add to the "don't try this at home" list for mr six (like roller-blading in the house, swinging from the chandelier, abseiling down the outside of the house and using a tennis racquet to wallop over-ripe apples).
All in all, I would recommend the movie with two cautions: (1) don't expect a relationship with the book - in fact it would better if you just assume the movie has no relationship to the book and (2) the football bit probably isn't meant to make any sense.
Additional links are available in the extended article....
More stuff
You can read more about Frank Gilbreth (the person):
"Gilbreth, Frank Bunker; and Gilbreth, Lillian Evelyn" Encyclopædia Britannica  from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service.
[Accessed January 12, 2004].
And about his pioneering research: here.
His wife went on to win awards for further design work.
There are some clips available.
For the curious there was an earlier film as well (reputed to be closer to the book).
Posted by Ozguru at January 12, 2004 05:01 PM
