This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This was one of the most popular movies of 1948, and is still sweetly amusing. What impresses me on this latest viewing is how well actor Webb and screenwriter Herbert carry off their trick. The challenge is to keep the audience from reaching through the screen to throttle the stuffy, know-it-all, Belvedere (Webb). In short, a dislikable Belvedere would ruin the movie. So how do you, on one hand, establish his needed superiority, and, on the other, not let it ruin the comedy. After all, it's his unusual character that distinguishes the story as a whole.As I see it, Webb and the dialog handle the challenge by making Belvedere a strictly matter-of-fact character. He says he's a genius, because as a matter of fact, he is. Crucially, he's not bragging— that would make him dislikable. Instead, he asserts his superiority much like a scientist might impartially acknowledge a fact. He's not egotistical about his accomplishments; instead, he's kind of like an impartial observer of himself. This doesn't exactly make him likable, but it does save the movie's pivotal character from being dislikable, at least as I see it. And I think it's a credit to the screenplay that they don't soften his unsociable character to maybe please the audience. All in all, I think Belvedere is a rather daring role for a comedy of its time.Of course, it helps to have two of the screen's more likable younger actors, Young and O'Hara, as co-stars with Webb. Plus, having a fuss-budget like Haydn (the gossipy Appleton) in the same film as fuss-budget Webb sets up certain delectable possibilities. Then too, setting events in the white-collar suburbs mirrored post-war changes going on with audiences that were also getting back to family life following years of hardship and sacrifice. So, to me, it's not surprising the movie was such a hit in its day. And happily, I think it's still pretty amusing.

Clifton Webb is absolutely marvelous here in the role of know-it-all genius-Lynn Belvedere. He is erudite and at his best in his commanding best actor nominated performance here. Unfortunately, this was the year of Laurence Olivier's win for "Hamlet," but that film, as was true with the films of Shakespeare, became relatively boring when transferred on to the big screen.Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara are wonderful in the roles of the parents whose children soon come under the supervision of baby-sitter Belvedere. He has a way with children all right.There is a terrific supporting performance here by Richard Haydn, as the nosy neighbor, full of making trouble throughout the neighborhood.

For a 1948 film dealing with the dawning era of suburbia, a concept that hadn't even existed 10 years earlier, this little charmer holds up remarkably well. The reason is Clifton Webb, who steals every scene he is in. And he's in just about every scene. This was Webb's first appearance as the fastidious Mr. Belvedere, an odd duck with a genius IQ -- and a hidden agenda. Here. he becomes a live-in babysitter for a suburban couple (Young and O'Hara) and their three boys. The one weak spot in the plot is that the three boys seem perfectly normal, but O'Hara apparently can't handle them. Much hilarity ensues once Mr. Belvedere arrives on the premises. In his off time, Mr. Belvedere is up to something in his attic room, but Young and O'Hara are hard-pressed to figure out what. A nosy neighbor (Haydn) causes no end of mischief, convinced that there must be hanky panky going on. The ending feels a bit rushed and the movie at times resembles a stage play more than a movie, but everything comes out just fine. And we finally find out Mr. Belvedere's secret. But you will have to watch the movie to find out what that secret is. A delight.

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.