“Yours, Mine and Ours” (1968) originally starred Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda – both at least 15 years too old to play a widow and widower who marry and amalgamate their already large families into one super sized unit. In the end, the 57-year-old Ball is supposed to give birth to the couple’s 19th child while the 63-year-old Fonda gives what is meant to be an inspiring pep talk on the beauties of sexual continence to his oldest stepdaughter.

At the time, this already looked a world away from the 1964 memoir by Helen North Beardsley on which it was based. In 2005, it looks even more alien. But Hollywood can always find a way to stamp such ancient properties with the authentic vulgarity of our own time.

The remake, directed by Raja Gosnell and starring the more age appropriate Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo, takes out the moralism of the original, leaving nothing but an odd couple yarn for the preteens, for whom the repetitive slapstick routines are obviously intended.

In 1968, of course, grown-ups still went to the movies in sufficient numbers to induce filmmakers to make movies about adult problems. Now that the market has become so kid centered, so have the movies.

Like the remake of “Cheaper by the Dozen” a few years ago – of which, God help us, there is to be a sequel next month – this one takes a heartwarming affirmation of family values and makes it a lesson to the parental authority figures to give their spoiled brood even more of what they want. In both films, dad has to give up his dream job because the kids don’t think he’s paying enough attention to them.

In 1968, the mostly negligible plot centered around Fonda’s attempt to adopt his new wife’s children as his own. In 2005, it concerns a conspiracy among the children of both families, who don’t like each other, to break up their parents’ marriage. Charming!

The reasons why they don’t like each other are also instructive. Mr. Quaid’s Frank is a red-state sort of guy, a Coast Guard admiral (Fonda had been, by contrast, only a humble warrant officer in the Navy) who likes to run a tight ship. By contrast, Ms. Russo’s Helen is an arty, hippieish, blue-state type with a rainbow coalition of adoptees and her own kids, all of whom are allowed to run wild. They call their new stepsiblings “evil preppies.”

“You sound like a big military robot, Frank,” Helen says in one of the fights provoked by the children.

“Yeah?” Frank replies. “Well, you sound like a big free-to-be-you-and-me flake!”

You’ll scarcely credit it, but Frank even believes in spanking. Just a little bit, you understand, but his shame is palpable when the kids reveal the fact to Helen. Her motto is: “Spanking is never the answer.”

It seems unbelievable that Frank and Helen didn’t talk about being at opposite ends of the cultural divide before they married, but their only discovering it afterward allows Mr. Gosnell to show the conservative capitulating to the child-centered views of his wife – and of the filmmakers, who thus complement the kiddie-fantasy with one of their own.

jbowman@nysun.com