A Pequena Mais Rica do Mundo

When a movie stars Joel McCrea, you can pretty much guarantee it will be enjoyable...and so I wasn't surprised that I enjoyed this film. It's cute and enjoyable and Miriam Hopkins is quite nice as well.

When the film begins, you learn that the heiress Dorothy Hunter is a bit of an enigma. No one knows what she looks like and folks about to meet her are curious what she looks like. However, what they don't realize is that this 'Dorothy Hunter' is a fake...hired by the real one (Hopkins) because she wants to retain her privacy. This has created a problem, however. How will she meet men and how will she handle it when she meets a nice guy? Well, she gets to try this out when Tony (McCrea) enters her life. She CONTINUES to pretend to be someone else and her assistant continues to pretend to be Dorothy. The problem is that Tony finds he's falling for BOTH women!

This is a sweet film and the stars do a nice job...almost nice enough to give this one an 8. The script isn't easy to believe but the cast do their best to breath life into it.

Hopkins is Dorothy Hunter, the richest girl in the world who has her secretary front for her in public. Due to her wealth she is positive that she will never fall in love. Once she meets McCrea though, she falls and falls hard.. The only question - can he pass the test? Will he prefer Wray, because he thinks she's the rich one, or will he go for Hopkins, pretending to be the secretary. Charming and fun romantic comedy. Hopkins looks really lovely.

Thanks to a fine and intelligent script by Norman Krasna and to some very good acting, this is a very entertaining and charming little film, about a "poor" rich girl (sort of Barbara Hutton type), seeking for true, "uninterested" love.

Miriam Hopkins is very good and looks pretty as Miss Dorothy Hunter, "the richest girl in the world", and works very well for the first time (they did four more pictures in the following years) with Joel McCrea, who is thoroughly believable as a regular average guy, being (unknowingly) tested by this heiress, who's pretending to be a secretary.

Beautiful Fay Wray, who had worked with McCrea once in 1932, in the very good chiller "The Most Dangerous Game", also at RKO, is excellent as the heroine's pal and secretary, Sylvia, who has to pass as the millionairess, and old pro Henry Stephenson is just right as Hopkin's Tutor.

This nice little movie (short by to today's standards) has good pacing, real, likeable romance and some funny (not so screwballish)situations, even some pretty racy ones (due to the fact that "married" Sylvia impersonates "single" Dorothy), considering it was made in the 1930s, so I believe it must have been released before the Production Code was fully enforced in 1934.

I came to this film because I'd just seen its musical remake, The French Line, a campy colour affair with Jane Russell, 'presented by' Howard Hughes. The French Line isn't unwatchable, although one may want to peep through one's fingers during the cowgirl dance number, but it is outstandingly dated in terms of male-female relations. Jane Russell's richest-girl-in-the-world is warned from the start that she will put men off with her rootin' tootin' tomboyish get-up & behaviour, but it's her money and power that will really convince them she's wearing the pants.

I am mad about Joel McCrea and I like Hopkins a lot. I wanted to see what the original was like. And of course, because it's the 30s there's no such issue. Men and women can be knockabout pals, Joel McCrea is enchanted when Hopkins thrashes him at billiards, they get drunk together, fall asleep smoochily together and the happy ending is wonderfully engineered: you relax your modern PC concerns even though the penultimate scene features McCrea picking her up (protesting wildly) and (off-camera) locking her in his car. It squeaked into cinemas pre-Hays, too, so the last couple of scenes in particular are pretty racy and very funny. The two leads play beautifully together and Fay Wray is always good.

Richest Girl in the World, The (1934)

** (out of 4)

Miriam Hopkins plays Dorothy Hunter, the richest girl in the world who also happens to be a recluse. Mrs. Hunter always sends her secretary (Fay Wray) out to pretend to be here. One day at a party Hunter, pretending to be the secretary, meets a man (Joel McCrea) who claims that he could fall in love with a rich woman even if she didn't have money. This RKO comedy was certainly inspired by Barbara Hutton, who at the time really was the richest girl in the world. The built up love story was probably the creation of someone in the RKO front office but the end results are fairly disappointing considering the cast involved. The story itself is the biggest problem as is goes from A to B to C without anything new being done and by the time the film is over you can't help but feel as if you've witness nothing but one cliché after another. The highlight of the film would be a scene where McCrea and Wray are out in a canoe when a jealous Hopkins comes up in a large part to tip them over. This sequence was a very funny one but there aren't too many laughs after it. McCrea and Hopkins made enough films together to be charming and they do that here. The two of them bring their characters to life even though the screenplay doesn't offer them much. Wray is also pretty good in her role but again, the screenplay doesn't give you anything. In the end this is a completely forgettable movie that most people will overlook so unless you're a fan of the stars then it's best to just keep this one in the vault.