Sitting Pretty (1948)-MONDAY NIGHT @ 02:00 AM (ET)
Fans of the 80s sitcom Mr. Belvedere may be surprised to learn that the role was originated on the screen by Clifton Webb in the 1948 comedy Sitting Pretty. Robert Young and Maureen O’Hara, THE TCM Star of the Day, are Harry and Tacey King, parents of three rowdy children and an enormous great dane. When their nanny abruptly resigns, Tacey puts an ad in the newspaper for a replacement. She hires “Lynn Belvedere” sight-unseen. Imagine her surprise when “she” turns out to be Clifton Webb.
Mr. Belvedere is aloof, condescending and maddeningly self-assured. He’s also quite the renaissance man. He disciplines the children, trains the dog, fixes the refrigerator and instructs would-be sculptor Tacey in the anatomy of the human jaw. And he provides a dash of pepper to what would otherwise be kind of a syrupy concoction. He’s an amusing, sardonic Greek Chorus to the silly domestic drama which is the product of small-town gossip and Harry’s idiot male ego. It all builds to a crazy climax, which I won’t reveal here. Mr. Belevedere adds the needed element of satire to Sitting Pretty.
Sitting Pretty was a perfect template for the family-based television situation comedies of the 1950s. It functions as a 2-hour screen test for Robert Young’s Jim Anderson on the iconic Father Knows Best series, which debuted on radio in 1949 and ran for 5 years until moving to TV in 1954 for another six years. Interestingly, the lead character in Sitting Pretty didn’t emerge as television’s Mr. Belvedere until the mid-80s.
Sitting Pretty earned one Academy Award nomination: Best Actor in a Leading Role for
Clifton Webb.