In the 1950s, Clifton Webb starred in many films for Twentieth-Century Fox. In private life, Webb was (how can I put this tactfully?) a very effeminate bachelor with a serious mother fixation. For some reason, Fox kept trying to convince movie audiences that Clifton Webb was a family man, repeatedly casting him as a husband and father in movies like "Cheaper By the Dozen", "Titanic" and "Marching Along". This basic implausibility is strained beyond the breaking point in "The Remarkable Mr Pennypacker", in which Clifton Webb has two wives at the same go, and a total of seventeen children!
"Pennypacker" was based on a Broadway play written by Liam O'Brien, and this film sticks close to the play. (On Broadway it starred Burgess Meredith, who would have been a better choice than Webb for this film.) O'Brien wanted us to accept a bigamist as a sympathetic character, so he stacks the deck by setting the action of this story in the 1890s, and then has Pennypacker espouse some "modern" ideas which were pretty radical at the time, but which we now accept easily. Early on in this film - set in turn-of-the-century Harrisburg, Pennsylvania - Mr Pennypacker (Webb) comes out in favour of votes for women, and he also endorses Darwin's theory of evolution. Pennypacker's father-in-law (Charles Coburn) and all the other respectable men of 19th-century Harrisburg are shocked by these radical notions, but of course a modern-day movie audience will find them perfectly reasonable. By the time we learn Pennypacker's big secret (he's a bigamist, and not ashamed of it), we're accustomed to seeing him as the sensible free-thinker, and we've been lured into perceiving Pennypacker's father-in-law and all his neighbours as a bunch of old fogeys. We're tricked into accepting Pennypacker's bigamy as a harmless alternative lifestyle. (By the way: although apparently endorsing bigamy in his play and then this film, author O'Brien was careful to make a public statement that his OWN parents were not bigamists.)
Pennypacker works for his Harrisburg wife's father, in a job which enables Pennypacker to shuttle between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Nobody suspects that he has a house in each city, with a wife and kids in each house. Even his two wives (and his two sets of children) don't suspect each other's existence. The secret leaks out when Pennypacker's Philadelphia house is condemned by the city government, under the laws of eminent domain, to be torn down and replaced by a road. Pennypacker is "away on business" in Harrisburg, so his eldest Philadelphia son travels to his dad's home office in Harrisburg, planning to warn him that his whole houseful of Philadelphia offspring are about to be evicted. There's a clever moment when Webb (as Pennypacker) discovers his secret's been rumbled. Presenting himself to Coburn as a loving husband and father, Webb surrounds himself with all the children of his Harrisburg brood, counting them off one by one ... until he finds one child left over, leading Webb to remark: "Boy, you belong in Philadelphia." Once the secret's out, Liam O'Brien's script comes up with a clever (and plausible) explanation for why Pennypacker can't remember which one of his two wives he married first.
SPOILER WARNING: I was disappointed that the play and this film both cheat with their premise. After establishing Pennypacker as a bigamist, the story then reverses itself by revealing that he's only a PAST-tense bigamist. Pennypacker's Philadelphia wife conveniently died several years before the movie begins. Also, we never see any of his Philadelphia children except for his eldest son. Now that Pennypacker is down to his last wife (in Harrisburg), and his Philadelphia brood are on the brink of eviction from their house, it's pretty obvious how this situation is going to be resolved...
Character actress Doro Merande, whose annoying voice ruined the soundtracks of many Fox films from the 1930s onwards, is her usual annoying self in a brief role here. "The Remarkable Mr Pennypacker" isn't very remarkable, but it's a competent treatment of an unusual subject. I'll rate this movie 5 out of 10.
"Pennypacker" was based on a Broadway play written by Liam O'Brien, and this film sticks close to the play. (On Broadway it starred Burgess Meredith, who would have been a better choice than Webb for this film.) O'Brien wanted us to accept a bigamist as a sympathetic character, so he stacks the deck by setting the action of this story in the 1890s, and then has Pennypacker espouse some "modern" ideas which were pretty radical at the time, but which we now accept easily. Early on in this film - set in turn-of-the-century Harrisburg, Pennsylvania - Mr Pennypacker (Webb) comes out in favour of votes for women, and he also endorses Darwin's theory of evolution. Pennypacker's father-in-law (Charles Coburn) and all the other respectable men of 19th-century Harrisburg are shocked by these radical notions, but of course a modern-day movie audience will find them perfectly reasonable. By the time we learn Pennypacker's big secret (he's a bigamist, and not ashamed of it), we're accustomed to seeing him as the sensible free-thinker, and we've been lured into perceiving Pennypacker's father-in-law and all his neighbours as a bunch of old fogeys. We're tricked into accepting Pennypacker's bigamy as a harmless alternative lifestyle. (By the way: although apparently endorsing bigamy in his play and then this film, author O'Brien was careful to make a public statement that his OWN parents were not bigamists.)
Pennypacker works for his Harrisburg wife's father, in a job which enables Pennypacker to shuttle between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Nobody suspects that he has a house in each city, with a wife and kids in each house. Even his two wives (and his two sets of children) don't suspect each other's existence. The secret leaks out when Pennypacker's Philadelphia house is condemned by the city government, under the laws of eminent domain, to be torn down and replaced by a road. Pennypacker is "away on business" in Harrisburg, so his eldest Philadelphia son travels to his dad's home office in Harrisburg, planning to warn him that his whole houseful of Philadelphia offspring are about to be evicted. There's a clever moment when Webb (as Pennypacker) discovers his secret's been rumbled. Presenting himself to Coburn as a loving husband and father, Webb surrounds himself with all the children of his Harrisburg brood, counting them off one by one ... until he finds one child left over, leading Webb to remark: "Boy, you belong in Philadelphia." Once the secret's out, Liam O'Brien's script comes up with a clever (and plausible) explanation for why Pennypacker can't remember which one of his two wives he married first.
SPOILER WARNING: I was disappointed that the play and this film both cheat with their premise. After establishing Pennypacker as a bigamist, the story then reverses itself by revealing that he's only a PAST-tense bigamist. Pennypacker's Philadelphia wife conveniently died several years before the movie begins. Also, we never see any of his Philadelphia children except for his eldest son. Now that Pennypacker is down to his last wife (in Harrisburg), and his Philadelphia brood are on the brink of eviction from their house, it's pretty obvious how this situation is going to be resolved...
Character actress Doro Merande, whose annoying voice ruined the soundtracks of many Fox films from the 1930s onwards, is her usual annoying self in a brief role here. "The Remarkable Mr Pennypacker" isn't very remarkable, but it's a competent treatment of an unusual subject. I'll rate this movie 5 out of 10.