2 reviews
In The Money is one of those Depression Era films where a formerly prosperous and idle family who lived on the dividends of a successful business. It has a dopey charm to it that makes it acceptable viewing for today.
Of course you have to really suspend disbelief that some idle rich girl would marry a pug fighter like Warren Hymer. But that's what Sally Starr does and later on her older and a bit more intelligent sister Lois Wilso takes up with his manager Skeets Gallagher.
As for Gallagher he's trying to urge his fighter back in the ring, but Hymer has decided he wants to be an actor and not just any actor, but a classical one. You have to hear him reading those lines from Hamlet that Laurence Olivier brought to the screen. It's a scream.
Hymer and Gallagher in another way prove to be this family's salvation and Arthur Hoyt sees his daughters married off. As for sons Harold Waldridge and Frank Coghlan I don't see much prospects for them other than being wastrels.
In The Money is a funny, but terribly dated Depression Era comedy with the lack of production values associated with a Poverty Row Studio.
Of course you have to really suspend disbelief that some idle rich girl would marry a pug fighter like Warren Hymer. But that's what Sally Starr does and later on her older and a bit more intelligent sister Lois Wilso takes up with his manager Skeets Gallagher.
As for Gallagher he's trying to urge his fighter back in the ring, but Hymer has decided he wants to be an actor and not just any actor, but a classical one. You have to hear him reading those lines from Hamlet that Laurence Olivier brought to the screen. It's a scream.
Hymer and Gallagher in another way prove to be this family's salvation and Arthur Hoyt sees his daughters married off. As for sons Harold Waldridge and Frank Coghlan I don't see much prospects for them other than being wastrels.
In The Money is a funny, but terribly dated Depression Era comedy with the lack of production values associated with a Poverty Row Studio.
- bkoganbing
- Oct 15, 2013
- Permalink
Arthur Hoyt has been able to provide very well for his son and three daughters on the dividends from the family chemical firm. When his checks start to bounce, daughter Lois Wilson works out that the company is in receivership. While her two sisters go about their hare-brained ways, brother Frank Coghlan Jr. Tries to win $500 in a motorcycle race. He winds up paralyziing his legs. Only an expensive operation can save him, and prospective brother-in-law Warren Hymer is scheduled to box for the championship, picking up $65,000 win, lose, or draw. Only Hymer refuses to fight any more. He wants to perform Shakespeare. Can manager Skeets Gallagher get him to do it?
This seemed to me a trial run for You Can't Take It With You, with most of the family without the peculiar ambitions of the Vanderhof menage. Miss Wilson carries most of the movie on her capable shoulders, and Gallagher plays very well opposite her. Director Frank Strayer manages some fun in the boxing match and the final scene that left me smiling. Louise Beavers appears in the first and last scenes.
This seemed to me a trial run for You Can't Take It With You, with most of the family without the peculiar ambitions of the Vanderhof menage. Miss Wilson carries most of the movie on her capable shoulders, and Gallagher plays very well opposite her. Director Frank Strayer manages some fun in the boxing match and the final scene that left me smiling. Louise Beavers appears in the first and last scenes.