In this case, the Steve Martin remake, which diverges almost completely from the plot of the original (for good reasons), is more enjoyable. I found the end of this version, with Stanley misplacing the baby, a bit dark and not treated comically enough.

Many reviewers have lamented the poor sound quality of the DVD. Well, with a decent sound system it ends up sounding like most VHS copies. What is more embarrassing, at least on this DVD packaging are errors in the trivia game -- they don't even get Ellie's name right! Did they even watch this movie?

I'd actually like to see this reissued with a decent sound-track someday, but there are more important older movies to be revived first...

Joan Bennett as his beautiful and encouraging wife Elllie, along with Billie Burke and Moroni Olsen as the other soon-to-be grandparents, all do their best to help poor Stanley through this latest trauma, but Tracy's best moments are when he his daughter comes over to see "Pops" (Taylor called Tracy "Pops" the rest of his life and treated him like a real father figure). "Father's Little Dividend" is a cute film, but certainly not as charming as the original, mainly because it is taking the same approach, albeit with a slightly different topic. Even Tracy's performance really comes across as being a little less of the same as the original.

This 1951 film was also directed by Vincent Minnelli and Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett once again did the screenplay using the characters first created in Edward Streeter's novel. "Father's Little Dividend" was remade, in a round about way, in the recent Steve Martin vehicle "Father of the Bride II," which puts some twists on the story that offer some further complications.