Cheaper by the Dozen

Webb's spinsterish acidity, so effective in Laura and The Razor's Edge, was amusing enough when he was elevated to stardom as the waspish baby-sitter in Sitting Pretty. But by the time he came to play this paterfamilias of the '20s who organises his twelve children along the same efficiency lines as his business, the act was wearing distinctly thin (and suffering from spots of sentimentality). Only one sequence really takes off, with the delightfully bemused Natwick trying to recruit the mother of twelve as a lecturer on birth control.