Lo que hace el dinero

Yup, that's James Dean at the soda fountain in a blink-and-you-miss-him scene! That's just one of the treats in this intoxicatingly charming film. I've always thought Piper Laurie was every bit as gorgeous as the other 50s sirens and Rock Hudson, director Sirk's go-to guy, is perfect as the hunky soda jerk in love. Beautiful to look at, with plenty of period songs, costumes, and cars. And the hep dialogue is a scream as is the agony of the period's high prices: a dozen eggs for under 15 cents! A great double bill would be seeing this with that other 1952 classic set in the same period, Singin' in the Rain. One of Mancini's earliest films.

Has Anybody Seen My Gal is directed by Douglas Sirk and written by Joseph Hoffman and Eleanor H. Porter. It stars Rock Hudson, Piper Laurie and Charles Coburn. Music is by Herman Stein and cinematography by Clifford Stine. It's 1928 and plot finds Coburn as wealthy Samuel Fulton, who now he is older and has no family of his own decides to leave his wealth to the family of his first love, the Blaisdells. Worming his way into the family's lives, he secretly grants them $100,000 and observes as money greatly changes the family. And not for the better!

Glorious Technicolor, sumptuous period detail and a funny picture laced with a caustic edge, Has Anybody Seen My Gal is a darn fine movie from the Sirk/Hudson stable. True, it's guilty of layering on the nostalgia, but the feel good factor that pulses throughout ensures the film remains a crowd pleaser. With song and dance also featuring, picture is frothy in its telling of how money can corrupt those who were once of sound standing. Yes, it's a message movie, but it's told with such an assuredness by Sirk and acted with fine ebullience by the cast, particularly the wonderful Coburn, that it becomes a movie comfortably recommended to those in need of a pick me up in this new and hurried world we live in. 7/10

This wonderful film has often been described as a wonderful piece of Americana and so it is.

It is beautifully realized thanks to a wonderful cast, terrific pacing and a story line that we can repeat over and over: money isn't everything.

Charles Coburn gives another wonderful performance. This versatile actor, who moved from drama to comedy with ease, is fantastic as the elderly gentleman who visits the family of the woman who turned him down years before when he proposed to her. While the woman herself is now deceased, Coburn finds her family in the ideal American town of the 1920s.

Lynn Bari is wonderful as the status seeking mother married to a soda store owner-Larry Gates. Then there is Gigi Perreau who is as precocious as ever.

A young and beautiful Piper Laurie appears as their elder daughter who becomes engaged to Rock Hudson, a soda jerk at Gates' store.

When Coburn goes to live with family, posing as a border, all hell breaks loose when he gives them anonymously $100,000. The money changes all of them drastically.

There are wonderfully comic turns everywhere and there is a short but memorable Charleston done by Laurie and Hudson. Even, Coburn figures in the dancing.

You will be upset when the movie ends because Coburn, on the verge of being found out, announces to the family that he may never see them again as he leaves. Nevertheless, this is a feel good movie; it conveys the American ideal and values so well and with great comedy along the way.

Great fun!

I just caught this on AMC and loved it immediately. A millionaire (Charles Coburn) gives $100,000 to the family of the woman who rejected him when he was young. Set in the 1920's when steak was 56 cents a pound, that's a lot of cash!

The money immediately goes to the family's head and Coburn has to step in anonymously to set things right.

A wonderful period piece, and Coburn doing the Charleston is an incredible sight!

The title "Has Anybody Seen My Gal?" comes from a popular song of the 1920s, and presumably it was slapped on this non-musical movie to let people know when the story is supposed to be taking place. That was a silly idea, but the movie itself is charming. Charles Coburn plays the world's richest man, an elderly recluse whose face is known to virtually no one. (Bear in mind that this movie was made before tycoon Howard Hughes became legendary for his secretive ways.) The rich man travels incognito to the small town where he spent much of his youth. There he becomes the anonymous benefactor of a family that played an early role in his success, though none of its members have any idea of their link to him. He works as a seemingly down-on-his-luck soda jerk in the town, watching up close how his mysterious checks change the lives of people in this ordinary, close-knit family. It's not always a pretty sight, but it does teach a lesson, not just to them but to him. There's a Christmastime angle that isn't absolutely essential to the plot, but it did point out to me this film's similarity to another bittersweet fantasy, Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life." If you want a movie that's heartwarming and entertaining and has a moral, this is a good choice. Try it for Christmas.