Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963 movie)

Let me introduce you to one of my favourite movies, “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” (1963) staring Glenn Ford as Tom Corbett, Shirley Jones as Elizabeth (their next door neighbour) and Ronny Howard as Eddie. This is the perfect summer time movie, although it’s also a pretty good movie to watch on a cold January day.

Eddie’s is about 8 years old and he and his father live in a small apartment in Manhattan. It has been awhile since Eddie’s mother and Tom’s wife passed away, and now Tom’s friends and Eddie are thinking it’s time for Tom to get back into the dating game. They hire a “live out” maid, Mrs. Livingston, and are going to experience new changes with the possibility of someone new joining their lives. Three women enter the story line, and it’s possible that one of these three will be Tom Corbett’s love of his life.

The first woman is Dolly Daley (played by Stella Stevens). She is beautiful, shapely and red-haired, from a small town, was in a local beauty pageant and decided to move to Manhattan to increase her self confidence. Tom and Eddie first meet Dolly when they stop at an arcade to play skeet ball. Eddie on first glance is totally enthralled by her beauty and soon she approaches them and asks to “borrow” Eddie. She wants him to come and sit with her so the “mashers” (or men) won’t hit on her while she gets her portrait painted on a tie for her father.  The tie ends up different than she expected as it was just her face that the artist painted and this put on the body of a woman in a bikini. Needless to say Eddie ends up with the tie and not Dolly’s father. This is such a fun scene, especially because the musical score during this scene just suits it so much.

The second woman is Elizabeth (played by Shirley Jones). Elizabeth lives next door to the Corbetts and was best friends with Tom’s wife. She’s beautiful, a nurse and just a very pleasant woman. She seems to care so much about Eddie and Eddie for her.

The third woman is Rita (played by Dina Merril). Rita is a chic fashion consultant and has her eyes set on Tom. Speaking of eyes, according to Eddie there are two kinds of women portrayed in his comic books. The good ones have small busts and big eyes, and the evil ones have big busts and squinty eyes. Eddie sees Rita as the second group and just can’t quite come to accept her.

Dolly Dayley was Eddie’s first choice for his dad, but wasn’t exactly the type of woman Tom wanted. Good thing she was the perfect match for his best friend played by Jerry Van Dyke. I won’t say who Tom ends up with, although I’m sure if you haven’t seen this you can already guess. It’s such a good story and Ronny Howard just does an amazing job in his acting, for a little guy his acting ability and maturity was well beyond his years.

There were lots of good parts of this movie, but if I were to pick one over the others it would be Eddie’s conversation with his father at the end of the movie. Eddie tries to coach his father on asking that certain woman suggests that they practice asking her, Tom of course playing himself and Eddie providing the voice of the woman. Eddie says, “Is there anything you want to ask me my sugar man?”… “I like you better my handsome man”. After Tom says “Will have you dinner with me dear?” Eddie, “That’s good dad, calling her dear.” And then once again as the voice of the woman he says “you bet my excellent strongman” … “Just call me tonight, tomorrow night and all week” … “and if you want to I’ll marry you. Just call me. I mean call her dad.” And best of all, he does.

Again, I really enjoyed Ronny Howard’s acting. He was also so good in “The Music Man” and other movies as well. There are a lot of kid actors in the business but just a few that really have stood apart from the others. In this category, along with Ronny Howard I would have to list Margaret O’brien, Shirley Temple, Natalie Wood, Freddie Bartholomew (from Captain’s Courageous), and the kids from “The Sound Of Music”. And more recently I would list Dakota Fanning and Freddie Highmore (from “Finding Neverland” and “August Rush”).

This is a both a fun and very touching movie and I would suggest that if you get the chance that you’d watch it and find out how good it is for yourself. And I can’t help but wonder whether all famous Director Ron Howard has ever been called “my excellent strongman” from his wife.