We're Rich Again

WE'RE RICH AGAIN is about a wacky family of rich deadbeats who are trying to marry off one of their daughters to a rich man before the creditors take away what's left of their fortune. As a result, the family patriarch, Grant Mitchell, spends most of the film avoiding a process server (Edgar Kennedy). Additionally, the mother (Billie Burke) spends almost all the film whining and crying while her children run about like spoiled brats.

While there are many other films I could compare WE'RE RICH AGAIN to, two films with almost the exact same plot which were far better are MERRILY WE LIVE and MY MAN GODFREY. All three films involve daffy rich families which are having domestic and financial troubles and all three result in a finale where everything is magically fixed and everyone lives happily ever after. However, the other two films are light years better than WE'RE RICH AGAIN. Why, well because WE'RE RICH AGAIN is frequently very, very annoying. Unlike the wacky but lovable families in these other films, the family in WE'RE RICH AGAIN are just annoying and after a while I just wanted them to go away--and in some cases (the annoying Billie Burke and Marian Nixon) I wanted them to die! They were just too annoying to be likable and unfortunately, the film was just written very poorly--providing little comedy or incentive to keep watching it.

By the way, Olympic swimming champ Buster Crabbe plays a guy who is, not surprisingly, a fan of swimming and diving. He says absolutely nothing during 99% of the film--just swimming and splashing and diving like an idiot. However, in the last moments of the film, he is given some excellent lines that just appear out of nowhere.