I always loved this movie too!
I first saw it when I was 11 years old and fell madly in love with Tim Matheson!
"The most amazing thing about this movie is that it's a true story. There really were a Frank and Helen Beardsley, who had ten and eight children respectively, and who proceeded to have two more after their marriage for, that's right, a grand total of twenty kids. The U.S. Navy actually listed their family as a restaurant so they could buy groceries from the commissary at wholesale prices, since the Beardsleys would buy 50 loaves of bread at once. Somehow Helen found the time to write a book about their family, "Who Gets the Drumsticks?" which became a bestseller shortly after its publication in 1964."
