Father Knows Best – Season One (Shout! Factory DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: B- Episodes: B-
In the
1980s, everyone screamed about “family values” yet the programs from that
period are dysfunctional, angry, shrill, immature and regressive about sitcoms
of the time that are a total contradiction of what a healthy family should and
could be. The resulting backlash against
bad shows from the 1980s hurt shows from the 1950s and 1960s that were to total
opposite and class acts. One such casualty
is the underappreciated Father Knows
Best, a hit for six seasons with a politically incorrect title that remains
one of the best family shows of its time ever made.
The title
character was Jim Anderson, played by the great Hollywood leading man Robert
Young, a class act who was perfectly cast as a hard-working, easy-going dad
whose wisdom and experience helps him raise three great kids (Lauren Chapin,
Elinor Donahue, Billy Gray) and maintain a wonderful marriage with his wife
Margaret, played by the also-great Jane Wyman.
They never got credit for their chemistry, but these two Hollywood ‘Big
Screen’ stars and one-time studio system players worked well together and it is
more apparent now than it might have been at the time.
Long
before shows like The Brady Bunch imitated their success and turned
it into formula, this was an original family show, not a phony imitator or
distorter of its original intent. It is
also the sheep’s clothing later shows (and sinister ideologies) hid behind when
trying to hijack the family and turn it into a commodity. All 24 half-hour episodes of the 1954 – 1955 debut
season are here, and even when they get a bit melodramatic, it is from a smart
comic, drama that always had its act together and after being absent from TV
for so long, its long-overdue arrival on DVD is most welcome.
The 1.33
X 1 black and white image is soft, though the copies are on the clean
side. This show was shot in 35mm film,
but this is not as sharp as comparable classic TV produced the same way from
its time period. The Dolby Digital 2.0
Mono is also weak, a little lower in fullness than expected and both point to
second-generation masters being used for this set. But this is a good looking show and we can’t
wait for the Blu-ray versions. Extras include
interview featurette Daddy’s Girls where Chapin and
Donahue are interviewed on DVD 1, two sets of home movie footage by Young on
DVD 2 including rare color footage of the show in production, DVD 3 has a 1959
special episode funded by the U.S. Department of the Treasury called 24 Hours In Tyrantland and DVD 4 has the
pilot for Young’s follow-up series Window
On Main Street from 1960, which did not do as well, but was a nice change
of pace for him and worth a look.
- Nicholas Sheffo
