Laugh and Get Rich

The no-nonsense wife of a whimsical, unemployed inventor knows it's impossible to LAUGH AND GET RICH.

This mildly amusing little movie is blessed with the talents of two of Hollywood's finest character actors - Miss Edna May Oliver & Mr. Hugh Herbert. As usual , they both give their full effort, wringing all they can out of their lines. Alas, the script gives them scant support, indecisive as to whether it wants to be a domestic comedy or a drama. Much of the time is spent dealing with the characters' financial woes and it is difficult to get many laughs from penury.

But the two leads are worth watching, irregardless, if only for their one wonderful scene, in which an inebriated Oliver & compliant Herbert joyously compel an entire party of stuffy society types to unbend and romp about the room to the music of 'Pop! Goes The Weasel.'

Kewpie doll-cute Dorothy Lee (doubtless on parole from Wheeler & Woolsey) plays their daughter, a young lady replete with all the requisite romantic difficulties. Oliver's boarding house tenants include elderly, deaf Charles Sellon & Italian immigrant George Davis, an artist handicapped by his inability to paint anything but cows.

Movie mavens will recognize teenager Rochelle Hudson at the country club dance and Ivan Lebedeff as the oily Count at the party, both uncredited.

Edna May Oliver runs a boarding house. Husband Hugh Herbert hasn't worked in years. Daughter Dorothy Lee is in love with no-account inventor Russell Gleason.

Director Gregory La Cava makes do with a patchy script that uneasily combines desperately unhappy situations with the sort of wackiness that you'd expect of the three main performers. Although Miss Oliver is, as expected, believable in both registers, Herbert is surprisingly good without his familiar comic tics. The script looks like a patchwork, more like a series of shorts strung together than a finished script, but the movie has enough bright moments to make it amusing.

This movie has nothing at all to do with its title. It is actually a few separate stories strung together. Not deftly, but effectively.

There is one very poignant scene between Edna May Oliver and Hugh Hurbert. He has confessed to stealing $250 from her to invest in an oil scheme. She expresses her deep anger and disappointment in a manner that a loving wife would. There is no comedy in that scene

I was very touched by the depth of the acting by both of them.

Times are tough. Sarah Austin (Edna May Oliver) makes ends meet running her home as a boarding house. Her husband Joe (Hugh Herbert) is trying every get-rich scheme in the book. Their daughter Alice (Dorothy Lee) has a crush on poor inventor Larry Owens (Russell Gleason), but her mother keeps pushing her to be with Bill Hepburn (John Harron) from a good family.

This is a pre-Code comedy. Edna May Oliver is the real lead behind the throne. It becomes rather chaotic and more serious than I expected. I was looking for a non-consequential comedy. Ultimately, this is too uneven and not funny enough.

The unusual teaming of Edna May Oliver and Hugh Herbert are the main treats behind Laugh And Get Rich. For those of you who are used to the Hugh Herbert of those Warner Brothers musicals, you'll find him quite a bit more restrained here.

Herbert and Oliver are a married couple who with daughter Dorothy Lee run a boardinghouse. They have to take in tenants because Herbert will not go out and get a job. The man is just plain allergic to work, preferring to spend time inventing Rube Goldberg type contraptions that he figures will make him rich. Add to that he's also a mark for every get rich quick scheme for the rent money that Oliver has to squeeze from tenants because he won't.

They are in love however and that fact is brought out in the film's best scene when at a country club dance Herbert and Oliver go into the best Virginia Reel this side of Gone With The Wind. They manage to knock the stuffings out of many an expanded shirt at the dance and it's done oh so charmingly.

Dorothy Lee is the apex of a romantic subplot with Russell Gleason and John Harron. I think you can figure out whether she chooses home town kid Gleason and city slicker Harron. Harron in fact has quite a large agenda in this film.

Laugh And Get Rich is not a great film, but definitely one that should satisfy the fans of either of the big screen's best identified character players.