I thoroughly enjoyed this movie as a child (and still do), though many have never had the privilege of being able to say they’ve seen it. Personally, I couldn’t help but connect with the setting of a Christian family ridden with eccentricities. The Happiest Millionaire is a heartwarming family film with a personal message about how growing up and letting go is hard to do whether you’re a son, a daughter, or a parent. 

The Set up:

The film is set in Philadelphia, right before the start of World War I. A wealthy family known as the Biddles can’t seem to keep a Butler due to their odd behavior and strange choice of pets. The father is a Christian patriot who runs a Biddle Bible class in the stable out back where his students learn to box as well as fear The Lord. The family owns twelve alligators which live in the conservatory and Mr. Biddle’s three children are homeschooled. The movie centers around Mr. Biddle’s only daughter who, due to a life of seclusion and being smarter than her peers, doesn't exactly fit into high society. She makes the choice to go to school and falls in love with a kind but weak-willed young man who finds her unorthodox ways refreshing to a superficial socialite world. Despite family obstacles, they get engaged, but the problems don’t end there. Changes must take place and beliefs must be challenged. The three pivotal character changes are experienced by Mr. Biddle, Cordelia Biddle, and Angier Duke (Cordy’s fiance). Let’s dive into each character’s journey and what important themes are explored in this film.

ACT I

 At the start of the film, we see Cordelia about to go out on a date with the most popular boy in town just to fit in. Fortunately, her brothers accidentally knock him out after warning him about their sister’s boxing capabilities; and, when he comes to, he takes off, scared to death of her family. Cordy gets angry at her family and struggles with whether or not being different can coexist alongside the world she wants to attempt to be part of. She makes the decision (against her father’s wishes at first) to go away to College and try to be more of a lady. After thinking about it, her father encourages her to go even though Cordy tries to change her mind out of fear. 

They have a good conversation which establishes the first letting go moment of the film and presents the main struggle for each character–you have to make your own choices and stand by them; you can’t run anyone’s life for them or have them run yours for you. The Father teaches Cordy three important lessons that come up again throughout the film and are finally fully confronted by the characters at the climax:

1. You can’t fear the world. 

2. You can’t be like the world. 

3. It is selfish and unnatural to have your child remain a child forever, even if it’s what they want.

ACT II
In the second Act of the film, Cordelia goes away to school and has her worldly roommate teach her how to flirt so she can fit in at a party. Despite being attractive and sociable, she scares off the guys by intimidating them with one intelligent comment. It takes the odd man out, Angier Duke, to take an interest in Cordelia’s sincerity and pursue a relationship with her. 

 The lesson to be learned here is in direct contrast to the lessons young girls are taught today–you don’t change yourself superficially to attract the attention of an unworthy man. A worthy man will admire you for who you are and not be intimidated by your intelligence like smaller more insecure men.  Angie takes an interest in Cordelia because she’s bright, alive, and has strength of character. He admires her for the very traits her father praised her for earlier in the film. So Cordelia left home but thankfully didn't forget everything she’d learned or change completely.

Cordy discovers Angie’s one true passion is cars. They get engaged and she invites him over to meet her family. Despite being overly obnoxious and disagreeable, her father is unsuccessful in scaring him off. Angie even wins over his respect by countering Mr. Biddle’s favored method of self-defense with another–Judo. A belief is challenged in this sequence and a few important teachings are shared. The father’s immediate response to Cordy’s engagement is that it must be a mistake and she’s a child who doesn’t know what she wants. His wife convinces him that his daughter is a young woman and from what they know of her is not likely to choose a husband lightly. Cordelia was raised by the Biddle family and therefore thinks like them, she honors her roots and what she was taught growing up so any young man she finds worthy would actually have to be suited to her.

The important character growth: 

1. Angie, unlike the guy from the beginning of the film, is not sent running in terror even after learning there’s alligators in the house and being humiliated by the father at boxing. This is another scene where Angie shows character by not being intimidated by the family. He even embraces and enjoys their weirdness because he is in a way just as weird as they are. He was man enough to choose Cordy and now he’s man enough to stand by her. 

2. In order to earn the father’s respect, Angie discovers he has to stand up to him. This is true among men who want to earn respect from other men. You can’t be a pushover and put your tail between your legs. Being polite is good, but it’s also something posers can fake, and I always hated the young man who put on a good “Sir act” so the parents liked him. That won’t work when your integrity and actual strength of character is questioned.

   
   ACT III

We get to Act Three of the film where everyone is tested by the main struggle I mentioned earlier about making your own choices and running your own life. This is something Cordy and Angie struggle and fail to do when Angie’s superficial and controlling mother steps in. After over a dozen fancy parties (thrown by the mother in New York) where they are kept apart, Angie’s mother pulls the last straw–Angie’s not going to follow his dream of cars in Detroit, he’s going to take over the family tobacco business. Cordy has watched her fiance fail to stand up to his mother and prove he can run a household like a real man so she calls off the wedding. 

Another important theme: Cordy had a judgment call to make and she made it. Despite loving Angie, she won’t marry him if he’s a child and not a man who can make his own decisions. Cordy was raised by a very strong father who knew exactly what he wanted for his family, and his children—she expects the same from a man she’s going to partnered to. Cordy has a bar set for a man she’s going to marry, and even if she loved Angie she wasn’t going to lower it because he wasn’t mature enough to meet it. This is something the young women in YA could learn from. They get involved with so many man children who aren’t any more fit to be husbands than hormonal teenage boys. Too many romances in recent fiction whether on paper or in films involves people of strong passions with zero maturity or self-control.

Anyway, after getting drunk in a bar (because that’s the way depressed men solve all their problems) Angie winds up in jail all thanks to the efforts of the butler keeping him from going to China or something equally stupid. Before finding out about this, Cordelia has another good talk with her father. Honestly, the relationship between the father and daughter is my favorite in the film, though I like Angie and Cordy together. Cordy retreats back into the same old fear she had at the beginning of the film. She tells her father she won’t marry Angie because he’s a baby and he never really approved of him anyway. She’ll just stay with her parents forever. Mr. Biddle returns to the same issues he brought up in their previous conversation. 

-Cordy can’t live at home forever out of fear of the world and confronting life’s issues. 

-She’s also not a child anymore who could be satisfied by simply staying at home forever in the special world as her father calls it. There is a time for everything under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to be a child and a time to grow up. And this movie shows that it doesn’t have to be such a terrible thing for a family to separate and experience change. It’s natural.

-Her father also admits that he has nothing against Angie, other than he doesn’t want to lose his daughter. He tells her he is her father no matter what and will support her whatever she decides–but she has to make the choice for her life, not him or anybody else. He lets her go and accepts he can’t run her life anymore. 

At the climax, Mr. Biddle uses reverse psychology to get Angie to man up and insist on eloping with Cordy. After literally throwing Cordy over his shoulder, she accepts he can make his own decisions and they elope to Detroit. This is ultimately a sign of taking ownership over ones own life and a maturing character moment because Cordy’s fiancé accepts the leadership role and finally takes charge of their lives. His character has to become the man who knows exactly what he wants for his family and does it, despite his wealthy relatives and mother completely hating his decision. Angie does it because it’s what he and his future wife really want, it’s their lives but he has to finally show her he’s willing to take ownership of it.

The Happiest Millionaire is a lovely story about family and the steps necessary for every man and woman to take in order to grow up. Ridden with solid lessons about how to be a proper young man and woman, as well as what to look for in a spouse who loves and fits right in with your family. It’s refreshing to see such a solid family portrayed in film and its probably one I’ll never get tired of. Besides, who ever said a movie made in 1967 had to stop being relatable?