"For the most part a smashing
spectacle."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Busby Berkeley's debut as solo director (he previously only directed
the dance numbers) is for the most part a smashing spectacle consisting
of screwball comedy, a satisfying love story, lavish sets, and elaborate
song and dance numbers ("The Words are in My Heart," featuring rows of
twirling white baby grand pianos, and the Oscar-winning showstopper sung
by Wini Shaw, "The Lullaby of Broadway," featuring the suicide of a Broadway
babe). What surprises is Berkeley's persistence in pushing to extremes
the mercenary motives of the characters. Of note, Gloria Stuart, of future
fame for her supporting role in Titanic, co-stars with crooner Dick Powell
as her love interest. 

The film opens as the summer season begins for the elite at the seaside
resort Hotel Wentworth, and it is quickly learned that everyone on the
staff hopes to milk the rich guests for as much as they can. Hotel manager
Louis Lamson (Grant Mitchell) explains to the staff that the hotel bends
over backwards to serve their wealthy pampered guests and there are no
wages; but, workers depend on tips which it's understood they'll split
with their supervisors. The rich are perceived as insensitive types, who
deserve to be taken for as much as possible. Dick Curtis (Dick Powell)
is the nice guy medical student earning money to pay for his education
by being a desk clerk. His fiancée is the hostess Arlene, who won't
marry him till he graduates and can provide for her.

The plot centers around a tightwad multi-millionaire widow, Mrs.
Mathilda Prentiss (Alice Brady) and her two grown children, the four times
divorced Humboldt (Frank McHugh) and the bored and single Ann (Gloria Stuart),
who are guests for the summer. Mathilda is interested in having her daughter
marry the even richer eccentric T. Mosely Thorpe (Hugh Herbert), even though
Ann finds him unattractive as a suitor. Thorpe is only interested in writing
the definitive book on snuff, and has the hotel provide him with perky
stenographer Betty Hawes (Glenda Farrell). Ann tells her haughty and stingy
mom (tips four porters a quarter to divide amongst themselves), that she
wants to have fun this summer and buy a snazzy new wardrobe. Mom makes
a deal that she can have fun this summer if she agrees to marry the scatterbrained
Thorpe in the fall. After Ann agrees, mom takes a shine to Dick because
he's a gentleman and seems honest. She talks him into taking the extra
job for the summer of being Ann's chaperone and protector for $500. After
talking it over with Arlene, he agrees and immediately goes on a shopping
spree with Ann where he sings "I'm Going Shopping With You." She buys to
her heart's content and tops it off by buying a $12,000 diamond bracelet,
which causes mom to faint when she gets the bill. Soon they fall in love
and Arlene has no problem with that, because she grabs the wealthy Humboldt
as her new man. 

Mathilda is again in charge of running the annual milk-fund charity
theater show and the hotel manager talks her into hiring for $2,500 the
impoverished mad Russian director Nicoleff (Adolphe Menjou). Nicoleff gets
Schultz (Joseph Cawthorn) to design the sets, which Mathilda expects to
be cheap. Instead the hotel manager, the stenographer, and the two Broadway
personalities plan on ripping the wealthy lady off for as much as they
can. The stenographer even schemes against Thorpe, getting him to write
a song which sounds like a wedding proposal and then getting him to sign
it, whereby she frames it as a letter and sues him for breach of promise
as regards to marriage. 

The comedy was a bit heavy-handed at times but it's excellent lighthearted
escapist fare for a Depression audience, as they can howl with delight
upon seeing the wealthy being taken advantage of by their social inferiors.
The happy ending has the only one who is not a gold digger, the earnest
medical student marrying Ann for love–who turns out be a sweetie, after
all.