Beneath an innocuous story about a quiz show prize, there is a comic attack on a consumer society and the quest for more wealth.
Jimmy Stewart plays the man making around 7 grand a year (talk about inflation!) and hopes to win the.radio prize of 24 grand. Oddly his friends think he would never have to work a day in his life, though I'm not sure how far that 24 grand would have gone even in 1950. After all he's making just over 7 grand a year and has a few hundred in the bank so that award money would finance his and his family's life or less than 4 years!
Even worse, he doesn't even win the money but an absurd list of prizes. That's where the movie began to lose me. The entire radio sequence was ridiculously overdone. It's true old prize shows such as Queen for a Day did have a plethora of prizes, but they were relevant to the winner's needs, not just absurd awards like a pony or a maid or portrait artist, etc.
Despite its flaws this is one of the most interestingly plotted movies I know of. It goes all over the place and often om unexpected place.
The extended ratio sequence certainly diminishes the movie for me. But otherwise it was rather entertaining with a doze of originality.
What can one say about James Stewart, in my view the greatest actor in the history of the Hollywood cinema. I love Brando, but I can't imagine even Brando successfully handling the range of parts that Stewart played.
Barbara Hale, later of Perry Mason TV series, was a strong presence in the movie, though a very young Natalie Wood seemed unrecognizable.as the daughter. One would never have guessed she would shine as a beauty queen in adult roles. Tommy Rettig, who played the son, later got the part of the boy in the Lassie TV series.
Fred Clark, who later was the second best Harry. Morton in the Burns and Allen series seems to have been ubiquitous in films of this era, and always successfully so.
I wish I had paid more attention to the music score; but, oddly, I don't recall a single underscore cue in the entire film. I'll have to see the movie again to check the accuracy of that statement.
In sum, even apart from the interesting plotting of the story, and despite the longueurs of the radio sequence, any Jimmy Stewart is foolproof.
