With Six You Get Eggroll (1968)

"Keeping this family together isn't child's play!"

Directed by: Howard Morris
Written by: R.S. Allen, Gwen Bagni, Harvey Bullock, and Paul Dubov
Starring: Doris Day as Abby McClure, Brian Keith as Jake Iverson, Pat Carroll as Maxine Scott, Barbara Hershey as Stacy Iverson, Alice Ghostley as Molly the Maid, and George Carlin as Herbie Fleck.
Music by: Robert Mersey

At first glance, this might seem like a less comedic version of "Yours, Mine, and Ours" or even "The Brady Bunch." Each of the adults has less than four kids and so much of the hilarity gained with gobs of children isn't present.

Granted, the two romantic leads find plenty of humorous situations to get themselves into without their offspring's help. Their bending over backwards to try to keep their children happy forces them into compromising positions where their own needs come last. This doesn't seem funny after the third time they sneak off to the drive through for coffee and give each other a knowing look. And the story does seem to drag a little without small persons spiking drinks or getting hit in the face with a football, therefore damaging their social lives. The two youngest McClure kids provide most of the child comedy, but only in a rather loudmouth annoying way - *gasp* a realistic way.

And that's where this movie picks up where the aforementioned films leave off. While the movies this is often compared to focus on the comedic aspect of adjusting to the merging of families, their humor could just as easily happen within a family that isn't blended - such as with "Cheaper by the Dozen." With Eggroll, we focus more on the awkwardness of dating again when you've already got a family, the pressure when a new spouse enters the scene, and the rough waters you have to navigate when it comes to your children adjusting. Day and Keith are just realistic enough to make this movie shine, but not realistic enough to be shocking to viewers in the late 60's.

Once again, the ending of this film is a little of a let down. It felt as if the movie makers saw their movie wasn't hitting enough funny bones and took a mixed up situation and blew it up into something ridiculous. Thus the entrance of the chicken truck, the hippies, and the too small Good Humor Costume.

This movie gets a three eggrolls out of a possible five eggrolls (3/5).