utgard14
Maisie (Ann Sothern) heads west where she helps a poor family trying to strike it rich as prospectors. Sothern is as delightful as ever. Lee Bowman is fine in yet another crappy male lead role in this series. For some reason they always paired Maisie up with jerks. Maybe so people wouldn't complain when she moved on to another guy in the next movie. Slim Summerville is great as Bowman's friend. He does some classic double takes. Virginia Weidler is likable as the little girl who takes a shine to Maisie. Rest of the cast includes Scotty Beckett, Mary Nash, Irving Bacon, John F. Hamilton, and Eddy Waller. Another enjoyable Maisie movie. Not the best but solid. The Maisie-meets-the-Joads element is nice. One odd moment that stood out to me was when Maisie told the family she's helping that she took a swing at a guy once for daring to call her a gold digger, followed by awkward nervous laughter from the family. Such a weird scene.
mark.waltz
Molested by a tumbleweed as the coyotes howl, stranded Maisie faces being stuck in the middle of nowhere as she heads towards a singing job. Unfortunately, she never makes it, her car unfixable and the thought of a nearby gold rush tempting her to stay. Grizzled Lee Bowman gives her a hard time and you know romance may blossom because well, fighting men and women are really lovers in denial, at least in these old MGM comedies, especially when sassy Ann Sothern is involved. As usual, Sothern's Maisie takes over in solving everybody's problems in record time, moving on just like Dorothy after saving Oz from those wicked witches.Sothern plays the role with much empathy as well as humor, showing she can hold her own with Bowman, yet with just a minimal shake of her head shows her sympathy for struggling mother Mary Nash whose daughter Virginia Wiedler she had earlier befriended. It's nice to see Nash in a sympathetic role, having been notoriously cruel to Shirley Temple in "Heidi". That old hound dog, Slim Summerville, plays Biwman's crabby companion, creating laughs simply by being miserable. It's a combination of comedy and drama, the funny scenes classic, and the dramatic elements as forced as those in MGM's other series, that one concerning the Hardy family. Still, there's no beating Maisie, pick in hand, taking a crack at mother earth
MartinHafer
This is the third of eleven Maisie movies MGM made with Ann Sothern. Maisie's character seems a lot like Dr. Kimbell in "The Fugitive" because each of the films finds Maisie moving on to yet another locale. In "Gold Rush Maisie", this dancer has been hired for a job in some dive in the middle of the desert. However, hr car breaks down on the way and she's forced to stay with a couple misanthropes who live in the desert. Lee Bowman and Slim Summerville play Bill and Fred--two angry guys who hate everyone and treat Maisie like a leper for bothering them. She eventually does leave and assumes she'll never be back to see these grumpy guys. However, later she meets up with a homeless family living in their car and traveling to some supposed gold strike--hoping to try their luck. Naturally, this takes them back to the property owned by the grumpuses--Bill and Fred. Can Maisie's winning personality win over these grouches or is there some deep dark secret and that's why they don't want them on the land. Well, the latter turns out not to be the case--they just hate everyone and Maisie MIGHT be able to do something about this and help the starving families at the same time.This is an interesting movie because it's one of the few from the era that acknowledges that there IS a Depression! In so many Hollywood films of the time, the characters are rich or at least middle class and quite unaffected by the hard economic times. This is good. However, I felt angry because I assumed there was some secret for why Fred and Bill were so nasty. But, instead, it was a bit like a sappy version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" where Maisie melts their hearts and save the day. Yick. It's fair but sappy entertainment and no more.
jbacks3
These Maisie B-programmers were all based on a tough-as-nails (yet tea-totaling) 30-ish Brooklyn dame who finds herself in some oddball situation where she's broke &/or stranded and manages to get herself out of the jam and help &/or enlighten nearly everyone she comes into contact with (usually landing a $25/week job in the process). Here she's finds herself STRANDED in the middle of Arizona in a broken down Model A (the thing's just 9 years old and had the snot beat out of it) 100-miles late for a singing job in some dive. She meets an anti-social Lee Bowman and his inexplicable sidekick Slim Summerville (imagine Tom Poston's role on Newhart without the humor) and encounters a family of displaced Arkansas sharecroppers traveling to a gold strike (imagine Grapes of Wrath) after her job falls through. The gold strike is back near Bowman's property. This is one of the most meandering and dull Maisies ever made (remember the production was plagued by a change in directors). Absolutely no drama--- the only mildly curious aspect is why Bowman is the way he is (did he discover gold and is hidin' it?). Whatever buildup there is in the plot is deflated at the end, except for the 'Gold is where you find it' theme. It's also got the tragic Scotty Beckett in the role of the sharecropper's kid. Ann's still quite cute and makes with the snappy comebacks, but this entry amounts to nothing much more worthy than a rainy day time waster. Yawn...
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