A college football coach goes through his roughest season both on the field and off in this light comedy. Fred MacMurray plays the kindly coach who has lost touch with his oldest daughter, Betty Lynn, and lost favor with the head of the alumni, Rudy Vallee. His wife, Maureen O'Hara playing much older than her actual age of 29 at the time, stands by his side as he stumbles through the rough times. Jim Backus is fun as their next-door neighbor, and Thelma Ritter adds some punch as their maid who always has money on the team that MacMurray's school is playing. Lynn is good as the teen caught up in angst and a young Natalie Wood plays his precocious youngest daughter very nicely. Overall, it's an amiable film, but underwhelming.
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FelixtheCat3 June 2000
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planktonrules2 December 2015Fred MacMurray is George Cooper--the coach of State's football team. They are having a horrible season and everyone seems to be second- guessing him...and he's worried that he'll soon be out of a job. In the midst of this, his teenage daughter, Connie (Betty Lynn*) is driving him crazy. The girl is unbelievably emotional and walks about in a Goth-like funk feeling sorry for herself. When George tries to help, he only makes things worse. The maid says he should just 'belt her one'! And, when you see how annoying (too annoying) she is, you kind of wish he'd take the maid's advice! Among the kooky antics involving the daughter are an attempt to create a fake boyfriend to pick up her spirits as well as Connie writing an article about teenage pregnancy...and her parents think she is pregnant. The antics, at times, seem straight from a second-rate sitcom--which is a shame as the rest of the film is much more enjoyable. The 'bubble dancer' portion involving Connie is kind of funny as is the aftermath.
Overall, the film is slight and enjoyable but occasionally the writing lets down the actors--with ridiculous situations and a character (Connie) who is much more of a caricature than a realistic person. Worth watching but don't rush to do so. Fred MacMurray, Natalie Wood and Maureen O'Hara have simply done better films.
*Betty Lynn is best known as Barney Fife's girlfriend, Thelma Lou, from "The Andy Griffith Show". Here, she is considerably younger and her part is incredibly poorly written. Poor Ms. Lynn! -
bkoganbing21 April 2007In her memoirs Maureen O'Hara was not too kind to Father Was A Fullback dismissing it off hand as a stinker. It's not all that bad, not all that great either. At the point in time she was making Father Was A Fullback she was under contract to 20th Century Fox and doing a whole lot of bread and butter films like these, shot on a dime, that made money for the studio while Darryl F. Zanuck was giving prestige films to people like Linda Darnell and Gene Tierney. Maureen so wanted to get a prestige film at that time herself.
Seen today Father Was A Fullback has Fred MacMurray as a college football coach who's had a couple of really rotten years in the job and people are getting on his case. Chief among them is the officious Rudy Vallee who is a big mucky muck in the alumni and constantly offering advice on how MacMurray should do his job. I like his performance best in the film.
Of course as it turns out MacMurray should have stuck to football because he hasn't got a clue when it comes to being a father to teenage girl Betty Lynn and adolescent Natalie Wood. Betty Lynn who if you remember was Don Knotts's girl friend Betty Lou on the Andy Griffith Show later on, is the older girl who's got a bad case of Jan Brady. The boys just ain't interested she thinks. But Robert Reed would have NEVER handled the situation the way MacMurray does.
In fact that might have been what Maureen O'Hara finds wrong with the film. She has little to do here except criticize MacMurray for his bungling attempts to brighten his daughter's life.
A young gas jockey, Richard Tyler, inadvertently provides the solution to everyone's problems in Father Was A Fullback.
Sad to say though MacMurray does look like a dunce in this film away from the gridiron. It's an amusing enough film, just hardly near the top ten for any of the cast. -
dougdoepke5 July 2007Maltin's movie guide gives this TCF production two-and-half stars which means some staff member didn't wake up in time to turn on the TV. Because this is a sparkling little comedy with inventive lines, lively performances, and first-rate direction. (For example, note director John M. Stahl's clever touch with the love-seat cushion.) Of course, the family-- right out of Wholesome Living, 1940's Style-- is both dated and idealized.
Nonetheless,, the plot hasn't dated at all. Mac Murray's a harried football coach about to lose his job because of a losing season, at the same time his oldest daughter is trying to survive adolescence. The comedy grows out of his sputtering attempts to cope. Four outstanding screenwriters are credited with the chuckle-a-minute script which surprises me. I would think such a concentration as this would cancel out, but happily, it doesn't
Of course, Natalie Wood steals the show as the wise-cracking little sister. Was there ever a child actor more gifted and without annoying affect than she. (Her wrenching performance in The Green Promise {1949} remains an unsurpassed classic.) Wide-eyed Betty Lynn too is outstanding as the angst-ridden, dateless teenager. And, of course, there's the incomparable Thelma Ritter perfecting her stock-in-trade as a mordant housekeeper never stuck for a fractured comment. As good as Mac Murray, Sullivan, and the old pro's are, it's really this supporting cast that makes the movie scintillate.
I expect a programmer like this passed quickly onto the shelves, without appreciation of the minor gem that it is. I'm glad there's an internet opportunity for circulating the recognition these entertainment efforts deserve-- even though the Coopers' are now a long way from the typical American family. And shame on you, Leonard Maltin. Next time, set your alarm. -
moonspinner557 September 2007It took a total four screenwriters (Aleen Leslie, Mary Loos, Casey Robinson and Richard Sale) to adapt one exceptionally thin play by Clifford Goldsmith, a comedy about a losing college football coach and his nutty family in small town America. It's nice to see Maureen O'Hara again playing mom to precocious Natalie Wood (following 1947's "Miracle on 34th Street"), but O'Hara has distressingly little to do here except dote on exasperated hubby Fred MacMurray, the coach who sidelines himself mostly on the couch. The writing and staging are so mechanical you can almost sense the pauses for preconceived laughs, but nobody except Wood and Thelma Ritter (in another of her maid roles) gets anything amusing to say. MacMurray, as usual, looks like a Bassett Hound in a top coat, and older sis Betty Lynn takes an awfully long to bloom (she writes a short story about a teenage bubble dancer, which is funny until O'Hara gives her a solemn talking-to, spoiling the laughs). Jim Backus (billed as James G. Backus) is nice to have around as a neighbor, and Richard Tyler is a handsome kid who works at the gas station (his best line: "Mustaches--do you know how hard they are to grow?!"). The laugh lines aren't deft, though they are occasionally underplayed by the cast, and this creates a droll rhythm which makes up for the lack of any big scenes. **1/2 from ****
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SimonJack9 December 2019"Father Was a Fullback" is loaded with talented actors of the mid-20th century. The story is a good look at the culture of the time from a few points. Teenagers began to be more heard and families seemed to be conflicted over the changing relationships that emerged in the years after the war (WW II). College football had a completely different look from the sideline benches, with the alumni, and in other ways.
This isn't about anything heavy or startling, and modern audiences may not find it that interesting. Even for someone who lived - that long ago, the plot of this film is just so-so. The best thing about it is the cast. Fred MacMurray and Maureen O'Hara, as George and Elizabeth Cooper, were stars who would continue in that lofty realm for at least two more decades. But this film also has some supporting players who would become household names in the years ahead. Among these are Thelma Ritter as Geraldine and Jim Backus as "Sully" (Professor Sullivan). And, this is just the 11th film of 11-year-old Natalie Wood. She would be one of the few child stars to become a major star as an adult before her mysterious ocean drowning in 1981 at age 43.
There may have been a clever thought behind the title, but it escapes one today. Cooper is a college football coach who's in dire need of a fullback. The film may seem very slow to many. But, for those interested in what life was like back then, it should provide mild entertainment. -
weezeralfalfa10 April 2019Moderately interesting sitcom, includes some top-rated players........Poor Coach Cooper(Fred MacMurray). His State College football team can't seem to buy a win this season. In fact, they have been shutout in every game except one. Even their final game, against Tulane, is a disappointment, as Cooper's ballyhooed secret weapon, a star track runner, meant to outrun the opposition for a TD, fizzles when he knocks himself out, hitting his head on the board above the entrance to the dugout, where he has been kept.......Unlike statements by some reviewers, this is neither Cooper's first year as coach at State College nor is it typical of his coaching record there. In fact, just 2 years ago, he coached the team to its first ever undefeated season! So, has the old boy lost his magic, or has recruitment been subpar recently? Coach Cooper claims the latter, and unfairly blames The Alumni Association, first in the person of the president(Rudy Valley, as Mr. Jessup), then the whole organization ,in an after-dinner speech at the annual meeting........ Irony of ironies, Cooper is handed a guarantee of signing the most coveted high school player in the nation, in local high schooler Hercules Smith(Richard Tyler), who has begun dating Cooper's troubled daughter :Connie(Betty Lynn), and wants to enroll where she will, right at State College. The 2 had met previously, when Connie complained she was a flop with boys. Cooper had his neighbor, Professor Sullivan(Jim Backus) call up Connie, pretending to be a boy, Joe Birch, who wanted to date her. Then, Sullivan had to find a real boy, to act as Joe Birch. He bribed the gas jockey to play the part, not knowing that he was Hercules Smith!(and neither does the audience). Well, this deception becomes a disaster when, after Hercules gets things started in the Cooper's house, several more supposed Joe Birches show up, championed by different people. Surprisingly, the original Joe Birch again showed up at the Cooper's home just before the game with Tulane. wanting to see Connie, and take her to the game. He had read her recent magazine article "I was a Child Bubble-dancer" and was impressed(hmm. A likely reason!). In fact, seems Connie is now said to be the most popular girl in town, because of this article! At first, rejected by the family, Connie eventually accepts, still not knowing that he is a football standout. When they return, Connie introduces him as Hercules Smith, and Coach Cooper is ecstatic......... 11y.o. Natalie Wood plays Connie's kid sister, who is just beginning to take on teen interests at the end.. She serves as a fun diversion, and ends the film as a new version of the former insecure, boy crazy, Connie, to her parent's exasperation.........Thelma Ritter is, surprise, the Cooper's live-in maid, who occasionally puts in her 2 cents worth. Maureen O'Hara plays Mrs. Cooper, who voices her opinion on matters relating to Connie. Really, she's wasted here. MacMurray seems a tad on the laconic side in his coaching persona during a game.
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HotToastyRag21 April 2018Fred MacMurray's having some trouble, both at work and at home. He's a football coach to a perpetually losing team, his teenaged daughter Betty Lynn is depressed because she can't get a date, his wife Maureen O'Hara is spread pretty thin by continually doing damage control, his boss Rudy Vallee keeps pressures him, and his maid Thelma Ritter actually bets against him on game day! His youngest daughter Natalie Wood tries to help her sister by making up a fake suitor, but the lie quickly gets out of hand when Betty wants to meet him. That part of the movie is by far the cutest and funniest, as everyone pitches in to try and help Betty and her imaginary boyfriend-but you'll have to watch the movie to find out the hilarity!
Father Was a Fullback reminded me of a cross between Kiss and Tell, in which a teenaged Shirley Temple makes mischief when her hormones start kicking in, and The Impossible Years, in which Professor David Niven has trouble with his two teenaged daughters when they start dating. If you liked either of those classic comedies, you'll probably like Fred MacMurray's take on it. It's not my favorite old comedy-I adore The Impossible Years- but it was entertaining, and it was very cute to see Maureen O'Hara as Natalie Wood's mom once again. -
ccthemovieman-122 October 2006I am so due to watch this film since I really enjoyed it the last time I saw it, which was almost 10 tears ago. I wouldn't think a cornball movie like this, one a lot of people today would think is stupid, would be enjoyable....but it was.
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. -
Maureen O'Hara would have made any man a perfect wife. And she was -- we are talking strictly on screen here -- a good mother too.
This has a little to do with football and mostly to do with the growing pains of an adolescent girl. The actress who plays her did go on to TV. Here she is pretty unappealing. Her younger sister is Natalie Wood. I don't think I ever liked Wood in a movie made when she was an adult but she was a bewitching child actress. She sparkles here.
Fred McMurray does a decent job. Never a favorite of mine, he too had a major career in television.
What drew me to this was Thelma Ritter, always a delight. She plays the family's live-in maid. A lot of movies have maids, usually back-talking ones. Would a football coach at a state college, with a terrible team, have been able to afford what seems such a luxury now? It doesn't seem likely. But her presence is most welcome. -
PatrynXX16 May 2020I had thought it was supposed to be a comedy. Alas it was more or less a sports tragedy. I saw the review and thought did they see the same movie I did. Yikes. Connie was the only one any good then they wrapped this movie up so fast Just yikes all around. I'll keep it as a Maureen O'Hara movie but this one will be at the bottom of the pile. With a name like Father was a Fullback you'd think it would be a comedy but it isn't.
Quality: 2/10 Entertainment: 4/10 Replayable: 4/10 (cause of Maureen and Natalie, and maybe the maid cause well she wanted to thank Santa too.. oh wrong movie)
Now 34th Street was a comedy.. -
George Cooper(Fred MacMurray)is the losingest coach State U has ever known. A well meaning square fresh from Elm Tree High, his team has potential but is yet to win a game in this his first season, which will make or break him. Comic relief comes in the form of his family's maid who knows to always bet against his team, and two daughters: Natalie Wood as a scruffy tomboy spouting poetic slang in which I must say is her best role, and Betty Lynn(who in real life is actually only eight years younger than Maureen O'Hara)as an angst-ridden hormonal teen with no writers block nor lack of pubescent imagination when she secretly sends in a unique offing to "True Romance" magazine. Her true calling apparently does not help matters any, except when it turns out that Joe Burch, the ploy her parents use to bring her out of her shell, turns out to be a high school football hero all the colleges have been bartering for. He had been intending to go to the leading team school, but in the end decided State U, "to be near Connie...she's the first thing I liked more than a football...." Hurrah! The team now has an official starting star for next season, and George's coaching contract will be renewed. A Happy End.