Father Was a Fullback
Cast & Crew
John M. Stahl
Fred Macmurray
Maureen O'hara
Betty Lynn
Rudy Vallee
Thelma Ritter
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
George Cooper, football coach at State U. in Riverville, is in the midst of a losing season and is warned by Roger Jessop, president of the alumni association, that many of the alumni are very concerned about the team's performance. George wants Jessop to recruit a local high school boy, Hercules Smith, the highest scoring quarterback in the country, but Jessop tells him that Smith is going to Notre Dame. Later, George's younger daughter Ellen arrives home with a black eye, the result of defending her father's performance at school. When George's insecure older daughter Connie, a frustrated, unpublished writer of romances, then complains that she is being rejected by boys, George tries to reassure her, but she dismisses his efforts. After church the next day, George finds himself in more trouble with Connie when he fails to introduce her to members of the football team in the congregation. To make her feel better, Ellen tells her that a boy named "Joe Burch" has been asking about her. Neighbor Professor Sullivan "Sully" is then persuaded by George to impersonate the potential suitor on the phone. Unfortunately, Sully's daughter Daphne overhears him, and he has to hang up, but Connie keeps talking and invites him to visit her that afternoon. Sully hires a gas station attendant to pose as Joe, and just as George is about to confess that the phone call was a phony, "Joe" comes to call. Connie's first date goes along quite well until Ellen bursts in dragging another "Joe Burch" and the deception is revealed. Connie is further humiliated when additional "Joes," hired by Daphne and Geraldine, show up. Later, the football team gets a big send-off when it leaves by train for its away games. They lose both and, on their return, are greeted at the station by a solitary dog. Connie has recovered from the Burch incident and is now intent upon pursuing a career as a writer, having redecorated her room in a very Spartan style and passing all her makeup on to Ellen. At the next game, George tells Jessop to get lost when he makes a coaching suggestion. The team loses again but this time in the last minute. To research a story about teenage motherhood, Connie, meanwhile, has written to governmental agencies for information, using her mother's name. George opens the mail and finds pamphlets titled "Facts About Infant Care" and "Your New-Born Baby" and assumes that his wife Elizabeth is pregnant. George then calls Jessop to apologize for his behavior and claims that he was nervous because his wife is going to have another baby. Jessop impresses upon him the importance of winning the next game, the last of the season. Later that evening, George is scheduled to talk at an alumni dinner. When Elizabeth returns from shopping, George tells her he is so happy about the "coming" event, but she tells him that she is not pregnant. After George shows Elizabeth the pamphlets, Ellen tells them that Connie is sick and that Connie sent for the pamphlets causing George and Elizabeth to jump to the conclusion that Connie is pregnant. Just as George begins his speech at the alumni dinner, Elizabeth phones from the hospital to say that Connie only has acute indigestion. George then promises the alumni that he will win the last game. On the day of the game, Connie receives a check for her first published story but Jessop soon arrives at the house with a copy of Confession Stories featuring Connie's article "I Was a Child Bubble Dancer." After George reprimands Connie severely, Elizabeth talks to Connie and Ellen about being more understanding toward their father. The first Joe Burch comes to call on Connie, congratulates her on the story and invites her to the football game. George plans to reveal a secret weapon, Willie Davis, the best runner on the track team, at the end of the game, but when Willie is finally summoned, he stands up in the dugout and knocks himself out on the concrete roof. After the game ends in another defeat, Jessop comes to advise George and Elizabeth not to renew the lease on their house. Connie then returns home from the game with Joe, whom Jessop recognizes as the star quarterback, Hercules Smith. Hercules then reveals that he has decided not to go to Notre Dame, but to State U. so he can be close to Connie. Jessop realizes that if Hercules is to stay, so must George and Elizabeth. Later that evening, their problems solved, George and Elizabeth suddenly realize that Ellen is about to go through the same adolescent phases as Connie.
Cast
Fred Macmurray
Maureen O'hara
Betty Lynn
Rudy Vallee
Thelma Ritter
Natalie Wood
James G. Backus
Richard [dickie] Tyler
Mickey Mccardle
John Mckee
Charles Flynn
William Self
Joe Haworth
Gwenn Fields
Gilbert Barnett
Tommy Bernard
Mike Mahoney
Tom Hanlon
Pat Kane
Forbes Murray
Lee Macgregor
Buddy Martin
Don Hicks
Harry Carter
Bob Adler
Louise Lorimer
Harold Hatfield
Bill Radovich
Bob De Laur
Boyd "red" Morgan
Al Cantor
Volney Peters
Bob Simpson
John Zilly
George Murphy
Floyd Collier
Newell Oestreich
Hubert Kerns
Charles Mercer Barnes
Bill Martin
George Schutte
Paul Salata
John T. Martin
Roderick Craig
Don Garlan
Nate De Francisco
Billy Armstrong
Bess Flowers
Crew
Lloyd Ahern
James Barker
Irene Brooks
Doris Drought
Chester Gore
Charles Hall
Clara Holgate
Arthur Jacobson
Arthur L. Kirbach
Fred Kohlmar
Eddie Ledgerwood
Charles Lemaire
Harry M. Leonard
Aleen Leslie
Thomas Little
Mary Loos
Bud Mautino
Mickey Mccardle
Cyril Mockridge
Paul Monroe
Kay Nelson
Lionel Newman
Ben Nye
Ernie Parks
Stuart Reiss
Casey Robinson
Richard Sale
Emmett Schoenbaum
Fred Sersen
Faye Smith
Jack Virgil
J. Watson Webb Jr.
Lyle Wheeler
Darryl F. Zanuck
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
An early working title for this production was Blind Date. Mary Stuhldreher's article is not credited onscreen as a source for this film but is listed as such in the Twentieth Century-Fox Records of the Legal Department at the UCLA Arts-Special Collections Library. Stuhldreher was the wife of University of Wisconsin football coach Harry Stuhldreher, one of Notre Dame's famed "Four Horsemen" of the late 1920s. Stock footage of football games from Movietone News was cleared for use in the production.
Father Was a Fullback began production on March 14, 1949 with Elliott Nugent directing. An March 18, 1949 Hollywood Reporter news item indicated that, after three days of shooting, Nugent withdrew as director as a result of an "entirely friendly" disagreement with producer Fred Kohlmar. Nugent had previously directed Mr. Belvedere Goes to College for Kohlmar. Footage shot by Nugent was to be retained. John M. Stahl took over as director on March 21, 1949. As described in his autobiography, at the time of his departure from the project, Nugent was unknowingly suffering from hypo-manic-depression, a condition that plagued him for a number of years and required occasional, voluntary hospitalization.
Father Was a Fullback was the last film directed by Stahl, whose career began during the silent era and included Back Street (1932), Parnell (1937), The Keys of the Kingdom (1944) and Leave Her to Heaven (1945). He died in January 1950, at the age of 63. According to the legal files, sequences involving actors Frank Mills, Ruth Clifford, Fred Dale, Rodney Bell, Wilson Wood and Don Barclay were cut from the film before release. A Hollywood Reporter news item of August 1949 reported that Fox had ordered 542 prints of Father Was a Fullback for openings in the U.S. and Canada, the greatest number of prints on a single feature in the company's thirty-five year history. A radio version of Father Was a Fullback, starring Paul Douglas, Maureen O'Hara and Betty Lynn, was broadcast on Lux Radio Theatre on March 20, 1950.
