THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS
US, 1955, 95 minutes, Colour.
Bob Hope, Milly Vitale, George Tobias, Angela Clarke, Herbert Heyes, James Cagney.
Directed by Melville Shavelson.
The Seven Little Foys is a pleasant showbiz biography of the burlesque comedian and song-and-dance man Eddie Foy and his seven children. It is also a Bob Hope vehicle and he acquites himself well as a rather sardonic and self-centred song-and-dance man. He also has many enjoyable Bob Hope routines. Milly Vitale is the attractive heroine. There is a special bonus in a guest appearance by James Cagney repeating his Academy Award-winning role as George M. Cohan (Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942). He joins hope in a song and dance routine. The film is narrated by one of the Foy children, Charlie. They were very popular on the American stage in the early decades of this century. Most of them went into other fields of business in their adult life. Screenplay is by Melville Shavelson and Jack Rose, responsible for many domestic comedies in the '50s and '60s including Houseboat and It Started In Naples.
1. An entertaining show business biography? American musical?
2. The conventions of the genre: Bob Hope comedy routines, style, songs and dances? The presentation of American vaudeville? The world of the theatre? The world of the family and clashes?
3. Colour photography, period re-creation, sets? The contribution of the score, songs?
4. An interesting plot? The narrative by Charlie Foy and the com.mnts on the events and his parents' behaviour? The children and their experience of family life and the theatre? The effect on all of them?
5. The portrait of Eddie Foy? As an entertainer, self-centred, harsh, attractive? His not wanting to be married? His trying to upstage Maria? The contract and trying to get her to sign? His following her to Milan, the marriage, the honeywon? The prospects of the act together? The growing nuffber of children? His decision to be on the road? His love for his wife? Clara's presence and her criticism? Sending the iwney,, his relationship to his children? His winning the award for the Father of the Year and his absence when his wife died? His collapse after her death? His decision about the children? Training them, making them organised into a comedy routine? The travel, the work together? Their antagonisms? The problem of Christmas together, Clara's reaction, the court case and the discussion and the children's declaration for their father?
6. Mary as an attractive woman. the contrast with Clara and her hardness? The ballet routines, her resentment of Eddie's treatment of her as regards the contract? The letter, dancing in Milan, the marriage and honeywon, the arrival in the United States, the news of the pregnancies? The humour of the routine and montage to show the various baptisms, the priest's comrwnts and Eddie's getting back to the theatre? Her patience with him, love for the children, illness, not letting him know, her death?
7. The contrast with Clara, Clara's views and the correctness of these, her harshness, her continued presence, her concern about the children, the court case, the happy ending?
8. The people of the theatre, the talent scout and his liking the act, contracts, continued support? Bookings and the drive for success and reacing the important theatres? The significance of the fire sequence in Chicago and its effect on Eddie's career?
9. The talk about George M. Cohan, Jams Cagney's performance, the dance routines and the vitality of this segment of the film?
10. The contribution of the songs, the dance routines, the comic sequences?
11. Thems of family life, children growing up, bonds between them, the needs of the children for their parents? How was this illustrated in the sequence of the mother's death,, the reaction of the children, their antagonism towards their father and the difficulties in training them for the stage, the court sequence and their reactions? Insight into families?
