This film's script received an Oscar nomination, casting further doubts on that award's legitimacy. It seems more like one of those films they made up as they went along.
It opens with a reporter getting a tip from a steamship employee, who acts like he's risking his job, if not his life, that Dorothy Hunter is about to arrive in New York. Despite her being "the richest girl in the world" and apparently in her twenties, it seems no one in the world has ever seen a picture of her. Reporter, his source, his editor and his newspaper thereupon disappear from the film.
Next we see Ms. Hunter at a meeting of the trustees in charge of managing her fortune, but on advice of her attorney doesn't sign their document but takes it home with her. As you've no doubt learned already, this is because she is not Ms. Hunter. Why does Ms. Hunter (Miriam Hopkins) have her secretary (Fay Wray) pretend to be her? Well, there wouldn't be much plot if she didn't. Other than that, there's no apparent reason.
For a recluse, Hunter seems to get around quite a bit and be quite sophisticated, though neither her personality nor surroundings evoke "the richest girl in the world." She has a fiance who dumps her rather cavalierly, which she treats with indifference. She throws large parties. Yet no one except her old family lawyer and presumably her ex-fiance seems to know who she is.
Then she meets Joel McCrea and falls madly in love with him, but to test him she tells him Wray, who's quite a dish, is the real Ms. Hunter and does everything possible to throw them together, including giving him money and ordering Wray to go along with the gag.
McCrea's character varies from scene to scene from naivete to cynicism to opportunism puritanism and we get no sense of why Hopkins is so smitten and desperate for him, but it's all resolved eventually, if unconvincingly.
1934 was kind of the cusp between the frankness of the pre-code movies and the sexual evasiveness of the later "screwball" comedies and this film seems unsure of which side of the cusp it's on.
Excellent cast, clever dialogue in spots. OK if you like this sort of escapist fare about the love lives of the very rich and you're not too fussy about loose ends.
It opens with a reporter getting a tip from a steamship employee, who acts like he's risking his job, if not his life, that Dorothy Hunter is about to arrive in New York. Despite her being "the richest girl in the world" and apparently in her twenties, it seems no one in the world has ever seen a picture of her. Reporter, his source, his editor and his newspaper thereupon disappear from the film.
Next we see Ms. Hunter at a meeting of the trustees in charge of managing her fortune, but on advice of her attorney doesn't sign their document but takes it home with her. As you've no doubt learned already, this is because she is not Ms. Hunter. Why does Ms. Hunter (Miriam Hopkins) have her secretary (Fay Wray) pretend to be her? Well, there wouldn't be much plot if she didn't. Other than that, there's no apparent reason.
For a recluse, Hunter seems to get around quite a bit and be quite sophisticated, though neither her personality nor surroundings evoke "the richest girl in the world." She has a fiance who dumps her rather cavalierly, which she treats with indifference. She throws large parties. Yet no one except her old family lawyer and presumably her ex-fiance seems to know who she is.
Then she meets Joel McCrea and falls madly in love with him, but to test him she tells him Wray, who's quite a dish, is the real Ms. Hunter and does everything possible to throw them together, including giving him money and ordering Wray to go along with the gag.
McCrea's character varies from scene to scene from naivete to cynicism to opportunism puritanism and we get no sense of why Hopkins is so smitten and desperate for him, but it's all resolved eventually, if unconvincingly.
1934 was kind of the cusp between the frankness of the pre-code movies and the sexual evasiveness of the later "screwball" comedies and this film seems unsure of which side of the cusp it's on.
Excellent cast, clever dialogue in spots. OK if you like this sort of escapist fare about the love lives of the very rich and you're not too fussy about loose ends.