The Poor Rich

Oh boy. What a golden opportunity to make a riotous comedy for the ages. Here are the two best comedy character actors in Hollywood, both on hand for what ought to be one of the funniest ever. Edward Everett Horton, bumbling and befuddled, and Edna May Oliver, haughty and acerbic, at their best in lampooning eccentric aristocrats. This should be a movie for the ages.

Well, it was OK and it could have been so much better. It starts off promising, as they are brother and sister who have inherited a rundown mansion in a small town. With customary uppercrust audacity they dragoon some locals into their service, as they are trying to impress some expected relatives. Meanwhile, their mansion is in shambles from years of neglect, and they are both penniless to boot, having run through the family fortune.

It sounds funny, and for a time, it is. But the screenwriters quickly run out of ideas and situations containing true humor, and after the first thirty minutes the picture limps to its finish. Maybe that was the reason they were character actors, unable to carry a picture on their own, although they get some help from other character actors in the cast - Andy Devine, Thelma Todd, and Una O'Connor among them. It is serviceable enough and if you see it you can imagine what might have been with better material. Capitolfest, Rome NY, 8/16.

An early example of absurd, or "Screwball" cinema comedy, this delightful piece receives top-flight treatment from its veteran director, Edward Sedgwick, a specialist at helming comedic features, including a large number of films starring Buster Keaton, here coordinating able efforts from a splendid gathering of largely stage-trained actors, with each scene thoroughly developed by the ensemble. Albert Stuyvesant Spottiswood (Edward Everett Horton) and his cousin Harriet Winthrop Spottiswood (Edna May Oliver) arrive separately at their long abandoned and very much run down family manor, each unaware that the other is going to be there, and since both have become penniless, they are forced to move into the dilapidated house. When Albert receives a letter from old acquaintances Lord and Lady Fetherstone advising the Spottiswoods of their impending visit to the manor, the cousins are at wit's end as to how to exercise non-existent skills required to make the old house acceptable for guest reception. They are fortunate in finding local residents to serve as a butler (Grant Mitchell, long enamoured of Harriet); cook (Andy Devine, a jack of all trades); and maid (Leila Hyams, who has a secret agenda). The piece moves at a canter, with plot twists and outrageous incidents abounding, yet there is no bloating within the screenplay, as all characters are well-defined, although some are not precisely what they first seem. The film has a point of view, or moral message, that is both appropriate and pleasing, merely one of many gratifications to be found within a script that is essentially the product of Dale Van Every. Having no musical background but for a brief studio stock theme heard over the opening and closing credits, the film's effectiveness is principally based upon smart dialogue, from which the cast readily creates numerous wit-filled sequences. The work is shot within the Universal Studios lot. Oliver wins the acting laurels here with a clever performance that demonstrates her native talent at depicting thought and emotion through the slightest movement of hand or eye. Top-billed Horton is excellent as well, and other strong performances are turned in by Hyams, Mitchell, E. E. Clive, Thelma Todd, John Miljan and Jack Clifford, among others. The film is not commercially available in either a VHS or DVD format, and those who may have a copy that has been transposed from the original uncut 35mm. print, shall consider themselves fortunate when able at will to enjoy an enormously inventive and unjustly neglected work.

Cousins Edna May Oliver and Edward Everett Horton return from Europe to their ancestral mansion, where all the furniture is attached. They are broke. Overawing the locals, they set up house amidst the cobwebs and plan to welcome E.E. Clive, Una O'Connor and their daughter, Thelma Todd, hoping that by having Horton marry a rich aristocrat, they can repair their fortunes.

I found the beginning of the movie a trifle slow, as Miss Oliver and Mr. Horton were continually baffled by the simplest situation, and Miss Hyams fainting on a couch. Perhaps it was a mistake to cast the two against each other. Miss Oliver's deliberate pacing, like an ocean liner crashing into a pier, and Mr. Horton's befuddlement are funnier in opposition to quicker people. However, the pace of the comedy picked up gradually for an increasing arc of insanity that crested in a game of Saloojie with a roast goose, and then with Eddie Brophy, in an honestly funny performance, as a pugnacious "Flanagan of Central" bowling over everyone.

There's a superfluity of comic casting, as Miss Hyams as a cookware salesman and E.E. Clive, as a sputtering aristocrat talking about the Punjab compete with an overawed Any Devine, a thunderstruck Grant Mitchell, leaving Thelma Todd to play the straight man!

This film had a common theme in the Great Depression - a once rich family that has lost everything is required to put on airs so that they can marry into a truly rich family and thus restore their fortunes. In this case it is Albert Spottiswood ( Edward Everett Horton) returning home at the same time that his cousin, Harriet (Edna Mae Oliver) is also returning home after twenty years in Europe. Both come home to find that the ancestral home is in a dilapidated state, that all other relatives are dead and servants are gone. They are both broke. But Albert is engaged to marry Gwendolyn Fetherstone (Thelma Todd), daughter of the fabulously wealthy Lord and Lady Fetherstone, and that match will rescue them.

Involved in these complications are Andy Devine and Grant Mitchell (who has had a yen for Edna apparently since she was young) who have been commandeered into delivering their luggage / broken-down car, though with very little thanks for their help. Leila Hyams enters the fray as a traveling saleslady who is willing to fake a fainting spell in order to get into the house and is obviously up to something. John Miljan has a part as a fake mystic who is blackmailing Harriet about her past and does not believe her tale of poverty. And through all of this the Fetherstones are visiting from England, but they can't find out that the servants are fakes (Devine, Mitchell, Hyams) and that even their food is stolen or else the wedding will be off.

This is an excellent example of how you can go a long way with very little plot if you have an excellent comic cast, especially during Hollywood's golden age. This was made by Universal, and none of the stars were actually leads themselves and none worked regularly for Universal with the exception of Andy Devine. With Walter Brennan and Ed Brophy in memorable bit parts as a coroner and a cop respectively, and directed by Edward Sedgewick who had directed Buster Keaton's comedies over at MGM and is probably how this film ended up with Ed Brophy in the cast. I'd highly recommend this one.