This film oozes charm and warmth with the feel of an America that never really existed like the Carvel of Andy Hardy or the England of Quiet Wedding. For many people this was the start of Clifton Webb's career, for slightly older filmgoers his career began four years previously with his Waldo Lydecker in Laura, but for seriously old Broadway buffs he began as an accomplished and debonair song-and-dance man a quarter of a century earlier (he was, for example, in Cole Porter's first Broadway Show, See America First (a flop) in 1916 and in 1937 he introduced Porter's At Long Last Love. With Lynn Belvedere the role and the man came together triumphantly and ever after he played only leads. We should give at least a nod in passing to Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara, who actually get top-billing and Richard Hadyn as the 'old woman' gossip but it's Webb's movie from the very first frame in which he appears.

For a 1948 film dealing with the dawning era of suburbia, a concept that hadn't even existed 10 years earlier, this little charmer holds up remarkably well. The reason is Clifton Webb, who steals every scene he is in. And he's in just about every scene. This was Webb's first appearance as the fastidious Mr. Belvedere, an odd duck with a genius IQ -- and a hidden agenda. Here. he becomes a live-in babysitter for a suburban couple (Young and O'Hara) and their three boys. The one weak spot in the plot is that the three boys seem perfectly normal, but O'Hara apparently can't handle them. Much hilarity ensues once Mr. Belvedere arrives on the premises. In his off time, Mr. Belvedere is up to something in his attic room, but Young and O'Hara are hard-pressed to figure out what. A nosy neighbor (Haydn) causes no end of mischief, convinced that there must be hanky panky going on. The ending feels a bit rushed and the movie at times resembles a stage play more than a movie, but everything comes out just fine. And we finally find out Mr. Belvedere's secret. But you will have to watch the movie to find out what that secret is. A delight.

One of the things I remember having felt just after finishing seeing Sitting Pretty for the first time was intense pain. The sort of pain you get in your cheeks after indulging yourself in a session of heavy, near jaw-disjointing smiling. Whoa. In fact, this film stands out as one of my personal favourites. That kind of film you feel compelled to see once every year -at least- and one of these that would always appear in one of these absolutely annoying, regret-inducing, top-ten film rankings one sometimes is forced to produce upon friends' request.The plot, while not being exactly conventional, doesn't promise anything beyond the average comedy. But then the film relies not in the nature of the situations but in the way they are actually conceived to squeeze as much fun out of every nuance as possible. *Minor spoilers ahead*. Mr. and Mrs. King (Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara) enjoy a quiet, suburban life at Hummingbird Hills, with their three children. As the need for a babysitter becomes apparent, they put an ad in a newspaper which is promptly answered by Lynn Belvedere. Much to their initial puzzlement, Lynn turns out to be a *male* babysitter (Clifton Webb), but his amazing and seemingly endless display of skills makes the initial reluctance of the couple to melt, to such extent he soon becomes someone nearly indispensable to have around. But the suburban life has its drawbacks, and they come in the form of a nosy neighbour, Mr. Appleton –superbly portrayed by the excellent Richard Haydn- whose major activities, apart from gossiping, consist in pushing the wheelchair of her equally meddling mother, and pollinating flowers by means of a feather. The eccentric Belvedere falls like a bomb in the quiet neighbourhood, and soon the gossiping undermines the happiness of the family, propelling the story in a comedic crescendo with a plethora of funny misunderstandings, sizzling dialogues, skeletons frantically going out of almost everyone's closet, up to a fully fulfilling, comically cathartic end.Much of the reason of the film's success relies on the excellent casting. While Maureen O'Hara develops a charming character, full of wit and humour, the much underrated Robert Young renders an equally sparkling performance as the generally genial, but sometimes funnily annoyed because of Belvedere's overwhelming efficiency, American husband. However, the cream of the crop, the absolute star of the show is the awesome Clifton Webb. His Lynn Belvedere is something else, a true milestone in acting – as it had been his creation of Waldo Lydecker in Laura, the classic noir. The perfect timing in saying his dialogues, the little physical nuances here and there, together with that blend of near- contemptuous pompousness with an undergoing sense of humour that he manages to instil within his character, are just fantastic. The supporting roles are equally very well performed, but here the aforesaid Richard Haydn stands out with his unforgettable portrait of the go-between par excellence. Director Walter Lang, of 'The King and I' fame (the musical version, with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr) achieves one of his best films, if not the best hands down.By the way, it's a pity such a classic comedy had still not been released on DVD.-

Clifton Webb became a major star for a while on account of this film, in which he plays an eccentric genius who comes to live in the house of a young couple as a kind of general purpose servant-maid-tutor-savant-philosopher-critic. There was no end, it seems, to what Mr. Belvedere could do, and do extremely well. Walter Lang directs this pleasant picture with much skill, if not inspiration, and as Webb's employers, Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara make an attractive couple. Webb was a strange case. A huge star on the stage, his film career lasted less than twenty years. He was well into middle age when he started making movies, and at first he tended to play snobs and supercilious characters in general, starting with Laura, in 1944. Till Sitting Pretty came along he had appeared only in dramatic films, usually as a villain. Overnight, it seems, he was transformed, from upper class bad guy to loveable eccentric, and for a number of years he became a quite popular and unlikely star of often nostalgic films. Along with Charles Coburn, he was one of the last true Victorians of the movies, and as such a reminder of a more formal but also more individualistic time during in the postwar years. Sitting Pretty is an excellent showcase for Mr. Webb's unique brand of humor, as he managed to be superior and priggish but never mean-spirited.