Hard to Get

A spoiled rich girl wants revenge on the gas station attendant who humiliated her - he wants to sell his idea for auto courts across America; both are about to learn that some things in life are very HARD TO GET.

This is a wonderful, hilarious screwball comedy, boasting good performances, genuine laughs & fine production values. Witty & winning, it is a shame it is so obscure today.

Dick Powell appears to be having a terrific time as the young go-getter with the big ideas. As eager to please as a puppy dog, he enthusiastically hurls himself into the zany plot permutations. Whether impersonating Jolson singing ‘Sonny Boy,' or introducing the song hit ‘You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby,' Powell is never less than entertaining.

Lovely Olivia de Havilland is a pure pleasure to watch as she slowly bends to Powell's winning ways. Considered more of a dramatic actress, her considerable comedic talents are on full display here. The scene where she attempts to serve a fancy dinner while impersonating her maid is a quiet riot.

An unusually large cast of supporting players help move the fun right along: cuddly Charles Winninger as Olivia's physical fitness mad dad; Isabel Jeans & Bonita Granville as his insufferably snooty wife & youngest daughter; Melville Cooper as Winninger's long-suffering valet; Allen Jenkins as Powell's dimwitted buddy; Thurston Hall as a banker with a dangerous love of practical joking; Grady Sutton as Olivia's flaccid suitor; and Penny Singleton as a wonderfully unsophisticated servant.

Movie mavens will recognize Arthur Housman as a polite inebriate, and Arthur Hoyt, Vera Lewis & Jimmy Conlin as attendees at a flower lovers' banquet, all uncredited.

Rear projection screening was the bane of the cinema for years, as its patently fake visuals tended to distract from the action. HARD TO GET, therefore, deserves some credit for its splendidly vertiginous high-rise construction segment, which really does grab hold of the viewer's spine.

What would Hollywood have done if "It Happened One Night" hadn't been made? After that, the movies were peppered with heiresses, one of which was Olivia de Havilland in 1938's "Hard to Get" starring Dick Powell, Charles Winninger, Roscoe Jenkins, and Bonita Granville.

Margaret (de Havilland), an heiress, runs afoul of gas jockey Bill (Powell) because she doesn't have $3.48 to pay for gas and oil. He then makes her clean some bungalows. Outraged, she complains to her father (Winninger) and demands that he do something. He refuses and tells her to take care of it herself.

Margaret returns to the gas station, and, pretending to be the valet's daughter, makes nice, flirts, and goes out with Bill, who proceeds to tell her about a business venture for which he is seeking investors. Margaret then sets out to extract her revenge. And guess what happens along the way.

I'm not as enthusiastic about this film as some others on this board. It's totally predictable and, in my opinion, not one of the better screwball comedies, though there are some funny sections, especially toward the end.

Olivia de Havilland was absolutely beautiful and excellent as the spoiled heiress, and Dick Powell was delightful, as was his singing of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" and his entertaining "Sonny Boy," as a Jolson impersonation (blackface and all). Winninger and his friends (Melville Cooper, Thurston Hall) are very funny on the construction site at the end.

The cast makes it enjoyable.

When spoiled young heiress Maggie Richards (Olivia de Havilland) tries to charge some gasoline at an auto camp run by Bill Davis (Dick Powell), Gas station attendant Dick Powell punishes cash-less rich girl Olivia de Havilland, forcing her to scrub floors of the adjoining motel ! De Havillandshe seeks the plot's revenge, pretending to be her rich dad's maid instead of daughter ; and Powell's more than a poor man's dreamer, holding a grand idea for a "modernized" gas station...Long story short, Olivia falls in love after Powell croons "You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby" by moonlight, and then has to get out of the hole she's dug herself involving that lie...

D: Ray Enright. Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, Charles Winninger, Allen Jenkins, Bonita Granville, Penny Singleton. Good variation on spoiled-rich-girl-meets-poor-but- hardworking-boy idea.

I found this firecracker of a movie on TCM and fell in love with it! There's lots of crazy slapstick, clever & snappy dialogue, tender moments, good music and all-around great, lively performances. . Olivia is a blast as a spoiled little rich girl - she was spunky and absolutely radiant. Pleasant romantic comedy .

I really liked de Havilland in comedy !! Particularly liked Olivia in the light romantic comedy PRINCESS O'ROURKE (1943)

Dame (in the UK) the title given to a woman equivalent to the rank of knight) Olivia de Havilland is an iconic British-American actress who starred in some of the greatest movies of all time. She made her movie debut in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1935).

The actress gained fame playing the lead in box office blockbusters like 'The Great Garrick' (1937), 'It's Love I'm After' (1937), 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' (1938), 'Hard to Get' (1938), 'Dodge City' (1939), and 'Santa Fe Trail' (1940). She found herself being cast in one of the most iconic movies of all time 'Gone with the Wind' (1939), in which she played the 'Oscar' nominated role of Melanie Hamilton Wilkes. She earned two more nominations for 'Hold Back the Dawn' (1941), and 'The Snake Pit' (1948). Olivia de Havilland won her first 'Academy Award' for playing Jody Norris in 'To Each his Own' (1946) and her second one for 'The Heiress' (1949).

Some of the best movies of Olivia de Havilland's career include Gone with the Wind' (1939)'Hold Back the Dawn' (1941), Princess O'Rourke (1943) 'My Cousin Rachel' (1952), 'Light in the Piazza' (1962), 'Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna' (1986), and 'Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte' (1964). Olivia de Havilland passed away in July 2020 at the age of 104.

HARD TO GET (Warner Brothers, 1938), directed by Ray Enright, is another one of many formula fluff comedies capitalizing on the current trend of spoiled rich girl and the common working man. Not quite Frank Capra material, but something along that line.

The spoiled heiress in question is Margaret "Maggie" Richards (Olivia De Havilland), who happens to be young, pretty and bored. She has a sophisticated mother, Henrietta (Isabel Jeans); a business-tycoon father, Ben (Charles Winninger), who spends most of his time doing physical fitness by wrestling with his valet (Melville Cooper) behind office doors and at home; and a bratty kid sister, Connie (Bonita Granville). Because she doesn't want to go to New Port with her family, Maggie storms out of the mansion and takes the convertible. Running low on gasoline, she stops at the Federal Oil and Gas Company, a gas-station motel, to fuel up, where she is served its owner, Bill Davis (Dick Powell), and his partner, Roscoe (Allen Jenkins). Because Maggie accidentally left her purse at home and is unable to pay the $3.48 gas debt, she tells Bill to charge it. Because she's a total stranger, and been duped before, Bill puts this snooty customer to work cleaning out cabins and making the beds. Although Maggie tries sneaking away several times, Bill outsmarts her. After doing her chores, Maggie, resenting Bill's actions, returns home demanding her father to have the gas station attendant fired. Old Man Richards surprises his daughter by agreeing with the young man's actions, and that she is now a young woman who should now look out for herself. This she does, by plotting a vicious scheme getting even with Bill. Returning to the gas station the following morning, she pretends to be sorry, and sweet talks him into taking her out to a dinner date. During those few hours with him, Maggie learns Bill to be an ambitious architect having designed an auto court for a proposed chain of them across the country. What he badly lacks is money and a financier to back him. Maggie suggests Ben Richards (not telling him that he's her father but that of being his maid), and gives him the secret password, "Spouter," so to get past the secretary. Each time Bill goes to the office, he gets thrown out, physically. In spite of everything, Bill is not discouraged, going through extremes (disguising himself as a cleaning lady) to have one of these financial backers examine his blueprints. Once he learns Maggie has played him for a practical joke, he gives up. It's now up to Maggie to amend her ways, and when she does, Bill is gone and nowhere to be found.

Occasionally labeled a musical, HARD TO GET is actually a straight comedy with three (really two) songs inserted, crooned by Dick Powell only so briefly. The first, "There'a a Sunny Side to Every Situation" is heard only through a few verses by Powell minus any underscoring. The second tune , "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby," crooning to De Havilland on a canoe ride in Central Park, is a song standard composed by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer. What fitting lyrics to proclaim De Havilland's beauty. The third and final is an old one, "Sonny Boy" originally introduced by Al Jolson in THE SINGING FOOL (1928). While Jolson sang it for sentiment, Powell (disguised in black-face passing as a member of a band) sings it for laughs. His rendition almost sounds like Jolson himself, performing it to a point where the guests look on confusingly.

HARD TO GET may not as famous as the other "screwball" comedies from that era, but it does have some bright moments. Penny Singleton as Hattie, a daffy maid, gets one during an amusing dinner sequence. Switching roles with Maggie, pretending to be the débutante, Singleton displays her ability in comic timing where she becomes responsible for making the proposed dinner party a near disaster. Following the dinner, Powell quips, "That dame... she should be parked on Edgar Bergen's other knee." Although some portions of HARD TO GET might be a trifle slow, it's redeemed by a construction site sequence where Old Man Richards and his valet find the only way to get to speak to Davis, working 40 flights up, is by hanging onto a steal beam lifted over the city streets. While this is obviously done with rear projection screen, it get by realistically.

As with most comedies during this period, HARD TO GET gets great support by familiar character actors ranging from Grady Sutton, Granville Bates, Nella Walker and Vera Lewis to Arthur Housman doing one of his many drunk interpretations. Charles Winninger, a Hollywood reliable, gives one of his many business tycoons and lovable father-type performances that has made his famous. Melville Cooper provides some really droll comedy relief with his constant quipping of "Amazing!"

HARD TO GET is further evidence of the Warner Brothers musical with lavish dance numbers by Busby Berkeley and Warren and Dubin tunes becoming a thing of the past. Powell continues to sing a song or two, but by 1938 was concentrated more as a light comedy actor in routine assignments. De Havilland, best known for her numerous adventure films opposite Errol Flynn, would appear in more comedies of this sort, but like Powell, she proved her ability in assuming dramatic roles in the changing times of the 1940s.

The 80 minute presentation of HARD TO GET can be seen whenever presented on Turner Classic Movies. Amazing! (**1/2)

It's hard to believe that this little Warner Bros. comedy was made a year before de Havilland played Melanie in Gone with the Wind. She is such a feisty, saucy little minx that it's no wonder Dick Powell has to tame her. Proof that de Havilland was not just a fluffy ingenue is the fact that three films later she was playing the demure, ladylike Melanie. Makes you wonder why Jack Warner never fully appreciated her talent. Anyway, this is an enjoyable comedy about a brash architect working as a gas station attendant who treats a spoiled heiress rather harshly when she has no money to pay for gas. She decides to turn the tables on him and therein lies the germ of a plot. Charles Winninger and Melville Cooper are delightful in supporting roles, as is Penny Singleton as a dim-witted maid in the wealthy man's household. Too bad this one isn't available on video. Like another early de Havilland comedy, It's Love I'm After, it deserves to be seen by viewers who don't have Turner Classic Movies on their cable stations.