Sitting Pretty [1948] [DVD]

Clifton Webb had been an actor in silent movies and a major Broadway star, but it wasn't until he played Waldo Lydecker in Otto Preminger's classic Laura that he achieved genuine public recognition.

Lydecker was an effete, waspish newspaper columnist, and Webb wittily transforms that screen image in this popular comedy hit as the self-centred, pompous Mr Belvedere. Webb takes a job as a baby-sitter to Hummingbird Hill parents Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara, and the memorable scene where the toddler pours porridge over Webb's head was not only used as the film's poster motif, but also became part of the cultural imagery of postwar America.

Two sequels followed, then Webb quit the character, secure in a second career wind as an urbane leading man at 20th Century-Fox.