The success of Meet Me in St Louis and Life with Father led to a postwar hunger for turn-of-the-century nostalgia, and no studio managed to so regularly recapture those halcyon days as 20th Century-Fox, whose backlot was turned permanently into a standing period set. Here, the Gilbreth family of 12 children, headed by the ineffable Clifton Webb and the incandescent Myrna Loy, raise a Technicolored ruckus and proved so popular that a follow-up Belles on Their Toes was immediately ordered.

"Cheaper by the Dozen", based on the real-life story of the Gilbreth family, follows them from Providence, Rhode Island, to Montclair, New Jersey, and details the amusing anecdotes found in large families.