Kids Galore

When I was at the movie theater last week for another film, I saw three trailers in a row for the following: The Shaggy Dog, Cheaper By the Dozen 2, and Yours, Mine & Ours. All of a sudden I felt like I was ten years old again – and I wasn’t sure if I liked it.

Remake city does elicit a certain sense of nostalgia. I recall watching the original 1950s-60s films on television as a kid, and I am fond of older movies. The studios producing these remakes are undoubtedly counting on exactly that sense of nostalgia for adults and then, of course, garnering a new generation of younger viewers with the updated versions.

So, I went to the screening of Yours, Mine & Ours with that mindset. It’s a remake of the 1968 film of the same name, which starred Lucille Ball (Helen North) and Henry Fonda (Frank Beardsley). In the original film the “Ours” in the title has a double meaning, because Helen and Frank Beardsley have a 19th child by the end of the film. That was the mystery I was wondering about with the new version starring Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo. Despite the changes occurring in American culture in the late 1960s, birth control was essentially nonexistent in Hollywood films and television programs. (It’s only marginally on the screen even today.) This scenario of a 19th child seemed unthinkable for the 2005 version. And it was. “Ours” now simply refers to the fact that their 18 children are indeed “their” children. And, Russo’s Helen only has four biological kids and had adopted six foster kids with her now-deceased first husband.

Just like the Ball-Fonda version, the Quaid-Russo remake is a mildly entertaining family film where you can enjoy your popcorn and take the kids with you. There are plenty of pranks and mishaps and orneriness from the kids who don’t want their very different lifestyles cramped. And this version emphasizes the differences.

The remake also diverges in that less time is spent on courtship and more on the kids not getting along and scheming to break up their parents. To short-circuit dating time, Helen and Frank were high school sweethearts, so they can jump right into a marriage as soon as they meet up again at their 30th high school reunion.

Kids will enjoy all the messy and silly stuff the kids in the movie do. Particularly appealing may be the party scene(s) – the youngest Beardsley-North children get their kind of party, complete with huge bowls of marshmallows, popcorn, and candy that not only get eaten but thrown around the room. Meanwhile, the older kids trash the house with a jammin’ party.

But we all know that all’s well that ends well. Yours, Mine & Ours opens in theaters on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 for the Thanksgiving holiday.