Robert Young knows best in this shocking example of a repressive, patriarchal society.
According to Variety, the 1950s sitcom “Father Knows Best” is ready to hit the big screen. New Regency and Fox are putting it all together, with Chad and Dara Creasey writing the script.
The TV series ran from 1954-1960 and starred Robert Young as the head of a Midwestern family who could always solve any family member’s problem with a wise word or two; many lessons were learned by all. This is one of those series, like “Ozzie and Harriet” and “Leave it to Beaver” that people mention when they talk about how television in the 1950s presented overly idealized families where the father had all the answers and all the powers and the wife was a bland fembot who did the dishes while turned out in a dress and heels.
The new film version, they say, will be about ”a father whose modern-day parenting displeases his more traditional father, who comes to live with the family. They clash over which father knows best.”
Goodness, and I thought the original show sounded annoying. This is just as bad, if not worse. Actually, it sounds far enough away from the origial show that I suspect that this is one of those cases where the studios are trying to take a fairly ordinary movie pitch and build in marketing by tacking a more famous name onto it. Then again, considering how much movie versions of TV shows suck, I guess I can understand why they might not want to do it straight up.
The adapting TV shows into movie thing is fascinating in a way; there have been one, maybe two attempts that worked (I’m thinking of “The Fugitive,” and “The Brady Bunch”). Yet studios keep trying. It’s like they are so easily seduced by the prospect of pre-selling a movie on its name that they don’t even open want to acknowledge how foolhardy most of these adaptations are. This “Father Knows Best” thing sounds like a dud in the making.
