Joe Gimlet (Lee Tracy) owns a cigar store in New York along with his wife Mary (Mae Clarke). They aren't poor, but they do struggle to make ends meet. On March 6, 1933, in walks someone he knew when he was growing up, Ted Wright (Otto Kruger), now a banker. Ted invites Joe and Mary to dinner with him and his wife, Elvina, and tells Joe that if he will give him the four thousand he has in savings, he can turn it into twenty thousand in a few months. Joe wants to do this, Mary does not because it is all they have. They argue, and Joe says that if he could live his life over he would not have married Mary and would have instead pursued wealth. Joe then storms out of their apartment and into the street, and is hit by a car. While he's unconscious, he imagines he gets to live his life all over again, starting in 1910 when he is a young man.
In this alternate reality, Joe takes up Pete Evans (George Barbier) when he offers to let him in on a real estate deal in return for his 400 dollar life savings. He marries Pete's daughter, Elvina, to seal the deal. And since he knows everything that's going to happen through March 6,1933, he's a tremendous success in business, becoming not only a rich but a powerful man. Among the bad things he knew - He figured that his wife would probably two time him since he saw signs of her two-timing Ted in 1933. Joe didn't think he'd mind, but it turns out he does. And then March 6, 1933 comes and he no longer has the advantage of prescience. Complications ensue.
It's not like anything in this film is a big surprise, although time travel was not common story material at the time. It's all about learning to appreciate what you have or, in the words of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz "There's no place like home."
The make-up job done is pretty impressive for the time - MGM really does make the lovely Mae Clarke look like a middle aged frump at age 23.
MGM really "got" what worked as far as Lee Tracy vehicles. Starting with "The Nuisance" when he came over from Warner Brothers, they always gave him parts that used his penchant for fast talking comedy while letting him show his dramatic chops as well. An example of the latter in this film is when Tracy realizes he's back in 1910, in his boyhood home, and goes downstairs to see his mother cooking breakfast. In 1933 she must have been dead for years, because here he embraces her like he hasn't seen her for years - he hasn't - and tells her he's never leaving her side again. It's a very touching moment that, if you've lost a parent, you can easily relate to.
Lee Tracy ended up throwing away his own career at MGM, as did Buster Keaton, but at least MGM gave Lee Tracy the sporting chance that they never gave Buster Keaton.
