Not How It Seems: ‘The Happiest Millionaire’
What do the past few musicals discussed here on “Not How It Seems” all have in common? A few things, notably the fact that they were all made in the Sixties. But also, every one apart from The Sound of Music was set in the 1910s. No joke, Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang are set around 1910, while The Music Man and My Fair Lady are both set in 1912. The film we’re about to discuss, The Happiest Millionaire is set around 1916. Also, the Banks family from Mary Poppins and the Biddle family in Happiest Millionaire share the same housekeeper, who was also the housekeeper in non-musical Disney film from 1967, Bullwhip Griffin, amongst other things.
Apart from these loose connections, however, there isn’t much of Happiest Millionaire that the general viewing public will be familiar with. It’s not one of the better-known musicals, nor does it have a particularly large cult following. What it does have is some charm and songs by the Sherman Brothers (Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty, etc.).
The Happiest Millionaire was the last film Walt Disney worked on. The plot was inspired by a true story. The portion narrated by the butler could very well have been the inspiration for The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (although to the best of my knowledge, it isn’t). An overly cheery personality, new to the area, accidentally lands a job in a wealthy household full of crazy family members. That’s where we’ll start the introduction at least.
The story isn’t told exclusively from the butler’s perspective though. The author of the book on which the film was based was Cordelia Drexel Biddle, the real-life daughter of the millionaire. And a good deal of the story is told from her perspective. It’s an interesting coming-of-age story. Much like Fiddler on the Roof, it’s a coming-of-age both for the daughter and the father in the story.
The main problems with this film involve the daughter, Cordy, so I’m going to focus primarily on her portion of the story. She shows herself from the fore to have a close relationship with her father, rushing to his side in a time of need (alligator bite). We then learn that she hopes for suitors, but that they’re all driven away by her brothers, a Rob McElhenney and Ricky doll look-alike. Sidenote: the brothers are never seen again. After what is implied to be the newest suitor in a line is punched and runs away holding his jaw, Cordy retreats to her room and sings a song that indicates her confusion at growing into a woman: “Valentine Candy.” She is starting to want to do traditional, grown-up women things, but she feels like she’s betraying her old childhood ways. It’s actually a great song that captures the way (I imagine) a lot of teen girls feel. I can only speak for myself, but it fits how I felt, so props to the two men who wrote it.
This is our setup for Cordy. We know she’s a confused adolescent with strong family ties.
The same evening, Cordy’s snobby aunt arrives and announces her intention to send Cordy to a boarding school. Mr. Biddle refuses to allow it, but Cordy steps in, saying she actually wants to go. Although Biddle is still reluctant, he concedes to her wishes in the end.
At school, Cordy’s roommate is the very feminine Rosemary. Cordy solicits her for flirting advice and is answered in the musical number “Bye-Yum Pum Pum.”
Cordy intends to use this information at the huge party her aunt and uncle throw, but still finds herself too awkward to properly interact with the terrible men her aunt introduces her to. One man, Angie Duke, finds this charming, and the duo end up dancing, first to a one-step, then a waltz. Angie then begins to sing a song I can only imagine was inspired by the songs “Ten Minutes Ago” and “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful?” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, which Leslie Ann Warren (Cordy) had starred in two years prior.
After the song, Angie spends a couple of minutes geeking out over a car. Cordy has no idea what he’s talking about, but it’s obvious that he’s as socially inept as she is in a different way. So obviously, these two begin to see each other. The next date we see them on, he is still spouting about cars. Cordy leads the conversation and pushes him to talk about something else, but Angie has no interests apart from cars. He plans to take over the family tobacco business, but confides that he really wishes he could be involved in the Detroit automobile business. Cordy encourages him to follow his dreams, much like her father had always taught her, and suddenly Angie feels liberated to do what he wants to with his life. Cordy is minimally enthusiastic about the prospect of the automobile-centric life, but more enthusiastic about Angie himself.
The pair become engaged, Cordy drops out of boarding school and rushes home to tell her parents. Although Mr. Biddle is reluctant to give up his daughter, Angie wins him over with jiu jitsu (Biddle being a proponent of hand-to-hand combat). The family moves on with wedding plans. The wedding plans become consuming. Cordy is whisked off to New York to meet Angie’s family. The families clash, Angie’s mother disapproving of the eccentric Biddles. Angie’s mother, Mrs. Duke, announces that Angie will not be following his dreams to Detroit, and Cordy calls off the entire wedding. Angie goes to a bar to drown his sorrows at being constantly pushed around by his family (and maybe about losing Cordy? That part isn’t mentioned). The butler gets him drunk and jailed. In the end, Mr. Biddle convinces him to follow his dreams, elope with Cordy, etc.
So this film is an incredibly long, intricate film, with half a dozen plotlines and hundreds of plot-points. I haven’t even grazed the surface with the plotline I’ve gone with here. But, this is the part of the story with the most questionable viewpoints. The question on my mind is: who is Cordy Drexel Biddle? She asks this question herself, as I said, in the “Valentine Candy” number. But at the end of the film, I’m still left wondering. She begins as an awkward girl shaped by her father and brothers, goes to college, and attempts to be shaped by her roommate, and then immediately takes on the hopes and dreams of her boyfriend. Yes, she fights to go to boarding school, and fights for her future with Angie the way they dreamed it, but what are her hopes and dreams? She likes boxing, one-steps, her father, and Angie, and apart from that… not much is clear. She pushes Angie to tell her his favorite music, books, career choices, yet we never learn hers.
Perhaps the setting of the 1910s explains this. Women didn’t really hold jobs very often before World War I, I suppose, and all the other women in this story are basically socialites rather than individuals with jobs, apart from the housekeeper and maids (positions an heiress would never be forced into). Yes, Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady was a flower girl prepared to become a shop assistant, and Marian Paroo in The Music Man was a librarian, but they weren’t wealthy. And Truly Scrumptious from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins are both wealthy women much like Cordy, and neither one works at an actual job. So perhaps her lack of ambition isn’t a sexist ploy so much as a historical accuracy.
To the credit of this film, most of the most influential people are women. Aunt Mary is the PR gal for the family, making sure their old money continues to be viewed respectably, and Mrs. Biddle is the glue that keeps Mr. Biddle together, since he’s a little crazy. Cordy is confused, but stands up for herself to her father, and actually shapes Angie into a guy who follows his dreams. Mrs. Duke is a very influential woman who almost shapes Angie and Cordy’s future into what she wants. The men are all pretty wishy-washy. Mr. Biddle acts like a man who runs the house, but really he needs nurturing and his wife ends up swaying him onto the side of logic almost every time he’s in dire need of a reality check. Angie is a grown man whose only plans for life are shaped either by Mrs. Duke or Cordy. So while there are definitely some negative concepts brought on by the era in which the film was set, the women are still really the ones who hold all the power in this narrative.
One of the main pitfalls of this story’s many plotlines is that none of the characters are really fully developed apart from the titular character, Mr. Biddle, which makes sense. It’s not a perfect representation of women, but definitely not as bad as it seems.
“Not How It Seems” (usually) attempts to support the argument that favorite movie musicals aren’t really the dated, anti-feminist films some people perceive them to be.
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Zarm