03 December 2008

Yours, Mine and Ours

We recently watched the original Yours, Mine and Ours, with Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, and a very young Tim Matheson (much, much better than the recent re-make).  There's a particular scene that I love.  Here it is (it has been snipped a bit):

After an altercation between Colleen's step-brother and her boyfriend, Larry, who's been pressuring her to go farther physically in their relationship. Mom, Helen, is upstairs in labor and the house is in chaos.

COLLEEN: Please, I can't talk to mother right now and I've got to talk to somebody.
FRANK: Well, talk fast.
COLLEEN: Larry says he'll never speak to me again unless I grow up. He says that I"m being ridiculous and I don't love him, but I do love him. Am I being ridiculous?
FRANK: You're not being ridiculous.
COLLEEN: Well, do all the other girls, like Larry says? And am I just being old-fashioned?
FRANK: The same idiots were passing the same rumors when I was your age. But if all the girls did, how come I always ended up with the ones who didn't?
COLLEEN: But it's all different now.
FRANK: I don't know, they wrote Fanny Hill in 1742 and they haven't found anything new since.
A YOUNGER DAUGHTER: Who's Fanny Hill?
FRANK: Go to bed, that's who Fanny Hill is.

They walk into the master bedroom where another daughter is helping Helen get ready to go to the hospital.  He helps her up. The following dialgog continues as Frank and Colleen help Helen down the hall, down the stairs, and out to the car, one on each side of her.

COLLEEN: I know this is a terrible time to talk about it, but Larry said...
FRANK: I've got a message for Larry. You tell him this is what's it's all about. This is the real happening. If you want to know what love is take a look around you.
HELEN: What are you two talking about?
FRANK: Take a good look at your mother.
HELEN: Not now.
FRANK: Yes, now. It's giving life that counts. Until you're ready for it all the rest is just a big fraud. All the crazy haircuts in the world won't keep it turning. Life isn't a love-in, it's the dishes and the orthodontist and the shoe repairman and ground round instead of roast beef. And I'll tell you something else: it isn't going to bed with a man that proves you're in love with him, it's getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful, everyday world with him that counts.

I suppose having 19 kids is carrying it a bit too far, but if we had it to do over, who would we skip? You?


3 comments:

  1. Hello Lynne,

    That is my favorite scene from the movie too. I remember it after all these years, but thanks for the word-for-word playback. Sex separated from commitment, marriage, and the possibility of bearing children is a "toy" that can never satisfy our deepest longings.

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  2. I hadn't seen it for years and didn't remember this scene or most of the details from the movie, but after the disappointment of the re-make, I decided to order it from Netflix - thinking the kids would enjoy it and be able to identify - although we're only half as big as the Beardsleys.

    I watched that scene with a grin on my face and cheered when it was over.

    Frank's description reminds me of Chesterton - that the most powerful thing in the world is a regular man and his wife and their regular children living their everyday lives.

    And now I'm off to do some of those everyday things like baking cookies and sewing my daughter a skirt for Saturday's Christmas Parent/Youth Banquet at church, while my kids work on their schoolwork.

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  3. Loved this scene! Thanks for the reminder, Lynne.

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