Always Together

The premise for ALWAYS TOGETHER isn't that bad provided you suspend disbelief, but the film just doesn't quite work for me--probably because the humor is occasionally a bit broad and the characters are seldom believable.

The film begins with a cranky old multi-millionaire (Cecil Kellaway, in one of his few acting misfires) on his deathbed. In a strange last request, he tells his lawyer to give $1,000,000 to Jane Barker (Joyce Reynolds)--even though he and Miss Barker have never met! This is not like IF I HAD A MILLION or the TV show "The Millionaire"--there is some reason he chose her, though this isn't revealed until the end of the film.

At first, Barker thinks the lawyer is either crazy or playing a trick on her. However, eventually she realizes it's true--she's now worth a million. However, her fiancé (Robert Hutton) is a very proud sort of person and she doesn't know if having the money will hurt their chances of getting married, so she keeps this to herself and they wed.

Shortly afterwords, Kellaway recovers and wants his million back. When the lawyer points out that Kellaway has several million more already, this does not deter the millionaire from doing some horrible scheming to get the lady to want to give the money back. For example, he deliberately makes sure the husband finds out about the money. Ultimately, the plan seems to work--as the money appears to be destroying this young marriage. Can the young couple sort everything out? Will the greedy old millionaire get his money? By the end, does anyone really still care?

As I said above, as the film progresses, the humor and characterizations become broader and less believable. Up until about halfway through the film, I liked ALWAYS TOGETHER a lot. By the latter portion, I almost turned it off but somehow stuck with it to the end (which, happily, did improve--thanks to the funny scene with the Judge and a nice plot twist). All in all, it's obvious that this B-movie did not spend a lot of effort on the plot and working on the actors' reactions (which occasionally seemed over the top). Hutton was completely uninteresting and Reynolds, though exceptionally beautiful, seemed a bit too kooky the be a real person. Watchable but occasionally tedious.