Sitting Pretty

The King family of suburban Hummingbird Hill needs help. Tacey and Harry King have three young sons and a household that no sitter will tolerate, so Tacey places a newspaper advertisement for a live-in babysitter. The reply comes from Lynn Belvedere, and the household expects a young woman. Belvedere instead turns out to be a man, an eccentric and outspoken genius who claims a long list of careers and accomplishments. He takes the job for reasons of his own, and his presence soon reshapes the family's daily life, stirring suspicion in Harry and talk among the neighbors. Complications build toward a resolution that settles the household's troubles.

Walter Lang directed the film for 20th Century Fox, from a screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert and produced by Samuel G. Engel. It came in the middle of a run of Lang's musicals and comedies, four years after Greenwich Village and two before Cheaper by the Dozen. Clifton Webb plays Belvedere, with Robert Young as Harry, Maureen O'Hara as Tacey, and Richard Haydn, Louise Allbritton and Randy Stuart in support; 45 cast members are credited.

The comedy opened in March 1948 and runs a brisk 83 minutes. On IMDb it holds a 7.4 rating from around 3,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.1 from a much smaller tally of 49. The steadier voter base on IMDb, together with the modest TMDB sample, points to a durable and generally well-regarded comedy rather than a widely discussed recent title.