We're Rich Again

A once affluent Santa Barbara family, hounded by persistent creditors, hope to rejoice `WE'RE RICH AGAIN' if they can marry their oldest daughter off to a very wealthy twit. Then a pretty little country cousin shows up to complicate everything...

This sadly neglected screwball comedy from the 1930's offers manifold delights arising from its farcical plot & wonderful cast. Only a decade of over-abundant cinematic riches could afford to forget a perfectly fine film such as this. While not a great classic of its genre, such as BRING UP BABY or NOTHING SACRED, it still has much amusement to offer the lucky viewer.

Edna May Oliver & Billie Burke, both unforgettable & utterly irreplaceable, are delightful as the two stars of the film. Wisecracking, polo-playing granny Oliver, frequently found in the company of her gaggle of young men, utters sardonic comments on the plot & the behavior of the other characters. Vague, fluttery Burke, perpetually in a state of mental abstraction, adds her own brand of kookiness to the story line.

Olympic medalist Buster Crabbe is hilarious, spoofing himself as a champion swimmer who wears nothing but swimming trunks the entire film, even while attending a fancy garden wedding. Edgar Kennedy, as a process server unable to proceed past the driveway, gets to display his famous 'slow burn' to great advantage.

The other supporting players (Reginald Denny, Grant Mitchell, Marian Nixon & Joan Marsh) all ably assist with the general pandemonium.

Conventional screwball comedy, from a conventional play, about an ill-starred society wedding, in which the financially beleaguered mother (Billie Burke, doing her usual thing) and father (Grant Mitchell) hope to reclaim some lost wealth by marrying off their practical-minded daughter (Joan Marsh) to a rich twit (Reginald Denny). Other hangers-on include Edna May Oliver, not doing her usual thing at all, as a vigorous, boy-loving, polo-playing grandma, and Marian Nixon as a tongue-rattling cousin from Texas ("West Texas," she keeps correcting everybody). Nixon was usually a conventional leading lady, but she's more than up to the task of playing an annoying busybody, and she's the best thing in the film. There are some diverting plot twists and surprises, and the liquor and wisecracks flow pretty freely for a just-post-Code talkie. The director, William A. Seiter, did better work and worse work in a long career, but this is a fun screwball effort, with family dynamics echoed in later sitcoms and some good slapstick.

It may not be on the level of His Girl Friday or Bringing Up Baby but it is a lot of silly fun. This film will make you forget your problems and cheer you up.

The only character that is a letdown us Billy Burke's. She basically plays the same character as in Dinner at Eight.

Buster Crabbe barely speaks until the end of the film but he steals every scene he is in.

Fans of Edna Mae Oliver will want to see this, but I think they will be disappointed. The only character that is well played out is "the cousin from Texas". Everybody else get a few good lines and perhaps absurd situations, but little else. Oliver is cast as a polo playing grandmother, and one might hope this would be very funny, but it is not. "We're Rich Again" certainly deserves to be called "screw-ball", but not a comedy.

I concur! WE'RE RICH AGAIN is a delight from the first frame to the last, sadly neglected among it's peers, but definitely worth a look. I ran this film for my movie crowd here in Sacramento and they howled through it, especially the antics of Edna May Oliver and beefcake Crabbe. At the time it was released the critics lambasted Marian Nixon but I think she's a hoot as the oh so talkative cousin. The film survives in pristine condition as well, it looks as if it were filmed yesterday. Billie Burke has several wonderful scenes, one of my favorites is when she gives the butler a quarter and rattles off a huge grocery list, the perplexed servant does his best to assure Burke that he'll acquire everything on the list. Oliver and her polo buddies steal the show, be sure to catch this film!