Commentary
How can a childless, middle-aged intellectual writer relate to children enough to find out why they aren’t watching the television show for which he writes? The answer is to become a scoutmaster for a rowdy Boy Scout troop! Clifton Webb faces this dilemma in “Mister Scoutmaster” from 1953. It costars Frances Dee, Edmund Glenn, and George “Foghorn” Wilson. This is a really fun family film.
Perhaps you know Clifton Webb as the acid-witted writer, Waldo Lydecker, in “Laura” from 1944, his first major film role at age 54. He also is famous as the self-proclaimed genius Mr. Belvedere in “Sitting Pretty” (1948), a hit that prompted two sequels, “Mr. Belvedere Goes to College” (1949) and “Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell” (1951). These two characters are very similar to Robert Jordan in “Mister Scoutmaster,” as are most of Mr. Webb’s characters. However, this character is softer, because he’s a married man when the story begins, while the other two characters are bachelors….