The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker (1959)
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Based on a successful stage play, The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker loses in this adaptation to film by becoming more serious than an all-out farce. The setting is the end of the 1800s and the intrepid Pennypacker (Clifton Webb) runs a sausage company with two thriving plants in Philadelphia and Harrisburg. He shuttles back and forth between the cities and with equal aplomb, between two households. He maintains one wife (Dorothy McGuire) and eight children in one city, and another wife (Jill St. John) and nine children in the other. When one of the Mrs. Pennypackers finds out about his deception, the unruffled businessman sees no reason for her emotional reaction. Victorian inhibitions and rigidities are set against ultra-modern thinking, embodied in the people the bigamist admires -- like Darwin, the feminists (!), and free-thinkers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
Complete Cast:
- Clifton Webb - Pa Pennypacker
- Charles Coburn - Grampa
- Ron Ely - Wilbur Fielding
- David Nelson - Henry Pennypacker
- Larry Gates - Rev. Dr. Fielding
- Mary Jane Saunders - Laurie Pennypacker
- Donald Losby - Benny
- Nora O'Mahoney - Mrs. McNair
- Harvey B. Dunn - The Verger
- Joan Freeman - Mary Pennypacker
- Nancy de Carl - Ann
- Dorothy McGuire - Ma Pennypacker
- Jill St. John - Kate Pennypacker
- Ray Stricklyn - Horace Pennypacker III
- Dorothy Stickney - Aunt Jane
- Richard Deacon - Sheriff
- Mimi Gibson - Elizabeth Pennypacker
- Terry Rangno - Teddy
- Doro Merande - Miss Haskins
- Ralph Sanford - The Fire Chief
- Donald Harrison - Twin
- Ray Ferrell - Charlie
- Director(s):
- Henry Levin
- Writer(s):
- Walter Reisch
- Producer(s):
- Charles Brackett
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