Gold Rush Maisie

Gold Rush Maisie finds Ann Sothern as the good hearted show girl from Brooklyn going out west with a family that looks remarkably like Joads of Oklahoma. All that was missing was Henry Fonda.

In fact the subject matter was just like The Grapes Of Wrath. Uprooted farmers moving about the country looking for odd jobs in crop picking. Only here rumors of a gold strike are sending a bunch of them west to the Arizona desert. After a bit of kindness on Maisie's part, she hooks up with the Davis family which consists of parents John F. Hamilton, Mary Nash and kid Virginia Weidler, Scotty Beckett and an infant.

All the same problems that John Ford so graphically illustrated and John Steinbeck so graphically wrote about are present in Gold Rush Maisie. Pity that no one with a head as level as Maisie's was around in The Grapes Of Wrath. Many social problems would be solved.

Who'd have thought a film of social significance would have come from the Maisie series, but it did.

Showgirl Maisie Ravier (Ann Sothern) gets stranded after her rundown car breaks down. She is forced to stay with local dirt farmer Bill Anders and his help Fred Gubbins. He claims the abandoned town nearby is haunted by ghosts. She heads off to the next town to find work and is told about the ghost town with gold. She joins the Depression era Davis family on their search for the gold.

I like the Maisie character after watching the first three movies. There is no need to overplay her jokes. The termite driving a beer truck joke is fine but there is no need to point and laugh. It steps on the joke. What I like most is that she is the lead of her own franchise. She is finally not defined by her romantic male lead. I like that she is the hero of that downtrodden family. The writing is a bit clunky like her $25 car but it still has its fun.

As usual, Ann Sothern is the excite-able "Maisie", stranded again, SOMEWHERE. They show joshua trees, so she must have been somewhere in the mojave desert. Although that was probably just a backlot with a backdrop. When her car breaks down, she bumps into Bill (Lee Bowman) and Fred ( Slim Summerville), who get her car going again, but success is short lived. Now Maisie bumps into the Davis family, scratching for gold. Virginia Weidler is the daughter... you may recognize her from "The Women", where she was over-the-top, saccharin sweet and emotional. Here, she's just a normal kid. This one has a pretty thin plot... they had a couple ideas, and put lots of talking in between. Takes a while to get going, but does get better in the second half. Just my opinion. Could be wrong. It DOES have the moral lesson, as Maisie films usually do. See what you think. It's on Turner Classics now and then. Writer C.W. Collison had come up with "Maisie", but then he croaked young in 1941. Collison's death didn't stop them from making movies about Maisie... they were still making them in 1960! Collison had also written the Oscar nominated "Mogambo", with Clark Gable. This Maisie chapter directed by several different folks, apparently due to illness.

"Gold Rush Maisie" has Maisie (Ann Sothern) prospecting in this 1940 entry into the series.

Maisie's car breaks down, and she becomes stranded and has to ask for help from an isolated, nasty rancher (Lee Bowman) who shares his house with another sourpuss (Slim Somerville).

These films all followed the same formula - Maisie's charm, no-nonsense attitude and warmth melt the icebergs she meets. Later on, she meets a family of farmers who have lost their farm and become migrant workers.

Now they're on their way to prospect for gold. Maisie is stunned at how little they have and sets out to help them.

The atmosphere of "Gold Rush Maisie" is a little more down than usual, and the actions of the rancher played by Lee Bowman are inexplicable. First he's nasty, then he abruptly puts the moves on Maisie, becomes nasty again, and later, after she tells him off, he becomes nice.

Bowman was Sothern's leading man in the series more than once, as was James Craig - I prefer James Craig, who had more energy and variety in his acting.

One does really feel for the family, and that helps to hold one's interest. Sothern does her usual bang-up job.

Another reviewer has it right - Sothern would have been a bigger star in an earlier era. But if huge movie stardom eluded her, she still played some wonderful roles, and her two series are a treasure, as is the actress herself.

Well, it wasn't Alaska but Arizona where Maisie Ravier winds up next in MGM's third film of 10 for the blonde adventuress. While Arizona does have a history of gold mining, I don't know if there ever was another rush around 1940 as this film portrays. But that's the setting for "Gold Rush Maisie."

Enroute for another job singing in the Hula Parlor Café in Truxton, Arizona, Maisie's car breaks down. That leads to a night with a very unhospitable Bill Anders and his sidekick, and then to an adventure with a horde of prospectors who come in search of quick riches. These are mostly families that travel the farm planting and harvesting cycles in the Western states.

Maisie helps the folks set up a tent camp and file their claims, and in the end Anders melts a little. Some good drama and good neighborliness in this film. Ann Sothern continues to please audiences, and Lee Bowman is the grouchy Anders who finally softens up. The rest of the cast all are very good.

There's more drama than comedy in this film. Here are the better funny lines.

Maisie Ravier, "When I first saw you, I thought you were a stinker. Now I've changed my mind. You're not that good."

Maisie Ravier, "I'm not really ignorant - just uneducated."

Maisie Ravier, "As I look back on it, you've been awfully, awfully kind, in a sort of nasty way."