Belles on Their Toes

Before this film's opening title cards, the last page of the book "Cheaper by the Dozen" is shown, and the book is closed. The book "Belles on Their Toes" is then shown and opened to reveal the title "Twentieth Century-Fox presents Belles on their Toes, the Further Adventures of the Gilbreth Family." Voice-over narration by Myrna Loy, as her character Dr. Lillian M. Gilbreth," is heard throughout the picture. At the film's end, a brief sequence from Cheaper by the Dozen (1950) is shown, in which "Frank," played by Clifton Webb, sings "When You Wore a Tulip and I Wore a Big Red Rose" with his family. Several other novelty and period songs are briefly featured in the picture, such as "Beans, Beans, Beans" and "Love's Old Sweet Song."

The film is a sequel to Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), which also depicted the adventures of the real-life Gilbreth family, whose father and mother, Frank and Lillian, reared 12 children. As shown in the film, after Frank's death, Lillian continued his work in order to keep her family together and eventually became a very successful industrial engineer. Several of the actors from "Cheaper by the Dozen", including Myrna Loy, Jeanne Crain and Barbara Bates, reprised their roles, but some of the boys from the original cast, having grown too much to reprise their roles, were recast as older Gilbreth boys, such as Jimmy Hunt, who originally played "William" but played "Fred" in the sequel.

Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)'s Joe Scales and this film's Bubber Beasley are played by the same actor, Benny Bartlett. In "Cheaper by the Dozen" Joe is Ann's (first) date for the high school dance. He is soon replaced by the heartthrob lifeguard from Nantucket, Tom Black. After Ann has a pang of guilt for dumping Joe, Tom tells her to "throw him back baby, he's too small to keep". In this film Bubber is Martha's date for the high school dance. He again is replaced by a number of boys who are interested in dancing with the new and "stunning" Martha. She feels a bit guilty and surprised at her newfound popularity and apologizes to Bubber. explaining that up until then, "I really wanted to be a boy".

According to studio publicity, the graduation sequences were filmed at Santa Monica High School, and the barbecue sequences were filmed on location at Paradise Cove in Malibu, CA. Although publicity announced that the songs "Watermelon Weather" by Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Francis Webster) and "Monterey" by Carmichael and John Scott, would be in the picture, they were not included in the released film. According to a June 1952 "Hollywood Reporter" news item, theater managers in the Midwest offered patrons a "money-back guarantee" on their enjoyment of this film, and the publicity stunt substantially raised the picture's box-office intake and was used at other venues.

During one of the high school dance scenes, a Kelly green dress with tulle and white flower accents can be spotted on the dance floor. This dress appears to be the same dress worn in Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)'s Deborah Lancaster (played by Betty Lynn, best known as Barney Fife's girlfriend, Thelma-Lou, on The Andy Griffith Show (1960)).