Eddie Albert wants to marry Joan Leslie, start his own business, and get out from under the thumb of his blustery, obnoxious father, Alan Hale. His only asset is a legacy, but he doesn't inherit it until his mother, Minna Gombell, dies. At the urging of his grandmother, Jane Darwell, he sells the legacy at a steep discount to Hobart Cavanaugh. He sells it to gangster Anthony Quinn. He offers to sell it back to Albert, lest something unfortunate happen to his mother.
Like other Warner comedies in this period, it is frantic rather than funny, made from conflicts born out of obnoxious stereotypes. Among the worst is Miss Gombell, who is loud and hysterical at all times. Hale is permanently grouchy. Albert is working between his nice guy/sap character, and when MissLeslie walks out on him, as the wife invariably does in movies like this, it's in a fit of hysteria.
It's hard to care for any of these characters, and that means we aren't invested in what happens to them. Add in dumb cops played by Eddie Brophy and Edward Gargan, a minor appearance by John Litel as a plant manager, and the most sympathetic character might well be Anthony Quinn. True, he's willing to bump off ladies, but Miss Gombell wouldn't be much of a loss, and for him it's only business, like the way other businessmen behave here, only without the threat of homicide, which quickly recedes anyway.
Like other Warner comedies in this period, it is frantic rather than funny, made from conflicts born out of obnoxious stereotypes. Among the worst is Miss Gombell, who is loud and hysterical at all times. Hale is permanently grouchy. Albert is working between his nice guy/sap character, and when MissLeslie walks out on him, as the wife invariably does in movies like this, it's in a fit of hysteria.
It's hard to care for any of these characters, and that means we aren't invested in what happens to them. Add in dumb cops played by Eddie Brophy and Edward Gargan, a minor appearance by John Litel as a plant manager, and the most sympathetic character might well be Anthony Quinn. True, he's willing to bump off ladies, but Miss Gombell wouldn't be much of a loss, and for him it's only business, like the way other businessmen behave here, only without the threat of homicide, which quickly recedes anyway.