Bonne à tout faire

As the self-proclaimed genius, Mr. Belvedere, CLIFTON WEBB delivers every line of dialog with such crisp authority that you believe he IS the eccentric character who volunteers his services as a live-in babysitter for ROBERT YOUNG and MAUREEN O'HARA and their unruly brood.

Webb simply steals every scene with skillful ease, except when RICHARD HAYDN enters the film as a snobbish, adenoidal neighbor who is another kind of genius at snooping. Before you know it, Belvedere has all of these citizens under his thumb, exposing the hypocrisy of small-town gossip in his novel, much the way Grace Metalious did when she pried open the lid of PEYTON PLACE.

It's all for laughs and never fails to delight. This is the film that really established Webb's long career at Fox in roles that seemed tailor-made for his kind of pompous charm.