PRESERVED FILMS

Sweeter By the Dozen (ca.1950)
Director and Cinematographer: Herbert F. Sturdy. Assistant Director: Harold C. Ramser. Intertitles: Guy Brown Wiser. Cast: Karin Biorkman, Whitley Collins, Jackie Coslow, Kathie Frings, Valerie Haughton, Christy Hornsby, Alana Ladd, Pamela Lerner, Sally Sturdy, Molly Wrather, Judy Wyler, Germaine Pittman. Transfer Note: Scanned from a 16mm preservation print by Northeast Historic Film. Running Time: 17 minutes.

“Take a dozen or more normally exuberant youngsters in the second grade of school, mix them amid a day-long session of changing classes, and flavor with the excitement of making a movie — this was the recipe which Herbert F. Sturdy set himself to follow in cooking up Sweeter by the Dozen. He has been remarkably and quite charmingly successful. That the school was Westlake, in the svelte suburbs of Hollywood, and that the pupils were the progeny of ‘name’ figures in the film colony, may have had, perhaps, something to do with it. But kids will be kids—whether in Glendale or Grand Rapids. By some alchemy of the camera, Mr. Sturdy has indeed made them sweeter by the dozen.”

Such was the verdict of Movie Makers (Dec. 1951) concerning Sweeter By the Dozen, a day in the life of 12 girls in the second-grade class of Miss Martin at the Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles. Filmed by amateur filmmaker Herbert Sturdy on December 9, 1949, the film won first place from the Los Angeles Cinema Club in 1951, and honorable mention by the Amateur Cinema League as one of the year’s best amateur films.

Herbert Sturdy’s day job was that of a prominent corporate attorney, whose clients included Walt Disney (he was one of the executors of Disney’s will), but filmmaking was “his gift, his talent, his great joy,” according to his daughter Sally Sturdy Beaudette, star of Sweeter By the Dozen. A member of Amateur Cinema League and president of the Los Angeles Cinema Club in 1949, Sturdy shot 47,368 feet of 16mm film between 1929 and 1968, mostly home movies and mostly on Kodachrome. He devoted professional care to the construction, titling, and compositions of his films. The title card of Sweeter, and many of his other works, superimposes “A Sturdywood Production” against an image of the family's Southern Colonial home in Bel Air, California. Exterior shots of the house appear in Hollywood films such as My Foolish Heart (1949, starring Susan Hayward and Dana Andrews), and Not as a Stranger (1955, starring Olivia de Haviland, Robert Mitchum and Frank Sinatra).

Sweeter by the Dozen was likely Sturdy’s last fiction film. According to Sally Sturdy, who plays the lead girl, the film was scripted but a good deal of the girls’ performances was not. Westlake’s elementary school was phased out in the 1960s, and the institution is now the coed Harvard Westlake middle and high school. “My dad had a wonderful sense of humor,” recalled Sally. “He could laugh his head off, but there was a discipline that came into his life from having lost his father when he was 10. He always wore a coat and tie and was a little on the formal side, but he had a great sense of joy.”

About the Preservation
The Herbert F. Sturdy Collection, including Sturdy’s editing notes and audio cue sheets, was donated to Northeast Historic Film by his daughters. The camera original reversal print of Sweeter by the Dozen suffered from shrinkage, extreme curl, and vinegar syndrome. In 2006 Northeast Historic Film received an NFPF grant to preserve the film, and in 2021 received another NFPF grant to create an HD digital master, which also restored the original soundtrack, which consisted of ambient music and was much deteriorated. The NFPF thanks David Weiss of Northeast Historic Film, who supervised the film’s preservation and provided the information used in this note.

Further Viewing
A longer short by Herbert F. Sturdy, It Was Just Like Christmas (1948) is also available for viewing in the NFPF screening room.