Football coach George Cooper has as many problems managing his football team as he has at home dealing with his daughters, Ellen and Connie.Football coach George Cooper has as many problems managing his football team as he has at home dealing with his daughters, Ellen and Connie.Football coach George Cooper has as many problems managing his football team as he has at home dealing with his daughters, Ellen and Connie.
- Professor Sullivan
- (as James G. Backus)
- Grandstand Bit Part
- (uncredited)
- Football Player
- (uncredited)
- Grandstand 'Coach'
- (uncredited)
- Football Player
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaMaureen O' Hara was only 6 years older than Betty Lynn who played her daughter in the film.
- Quotes
Elizabeth Cooper: Not going, he's a professor, teaches English literature
Ellen Cooper: No, I mean going
George 'Coop' Cooper: Ellen, That's ridiculous, go and get cleaned up
Ellen Cooper: Daphne heard him gurgling on the phone like a worn out wolf about being a freshman in college
Elizabeth Cooper: Oh What an Idea
[looks at George, stunned]
Elizabeth Cooper: George Cooper!
Ellen Cooper: And he was pitching woos to a girl, Daphne thinks maybe she ought to tell her mother
Elizabeth Cooper: George you didn't
George 'Coop' Cooper: Father's little helper
Elizabeth Cooper: oh you couldn't
George 'Coop' Cooper: But Liz, you said yourself that she needed, my intentions were
Elizabeth Cooper: My poor darling up there with goosebumps about some boy who not even going to happen
- ConnectionsReferenced in Hollywood Hist-o-Rama: Fred MacMurray (1961)
Here's another classic movie in which I enjoyed the corny expressions of the day. Usually I hear those most notably in the early 1930s films but there is lot of it here, too, many of them coming from little Natalie Wood.
Betty Lynn, playing older sister "Connie" to young "Ellen" (Wood), also is good in her kooky role. Fred MacMurray and Maureen O'Hara play the parents, "George and Elizabeth Cooper." This really isn't a football story, despite the title. It's a screwball family-type comedy, many of which I never cared for me, but this has good charm and humor. MacMurray is his normal likable self, as when he played in the early Disney films such as "The Absent Minded Professor."
Since MacMurray plays a football coach, there is some gridiron storyline in here, and it's unique because of the different-kind of ending regarding his team.
This movie has a neat twist at the end of it, too. Not well-known, I suspect, this is a true "sleeper," a fun family movie another era long gone.
- ccthemovieman-1
- Oct 22, 2006
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Papá fue un defensa
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 24 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1