mark.waltz
So does apparently eccentric matron Sarah Padden, the spinster matriarch of a greedy family who wants to put her in a nut house so they can get their grungy hands on her fortune of $3 million. She invites them all to spend a week in her mountaintop mansion where you know what starts to happen. You've seen this all before, but right from the beginning, this film's tongue is so far into its cheek that the laughter starts rolling as soon as the old dear takes the stand in her defense. Padden is adorable, insulting her family and outlandishly insufferable in-laws (which includes Minerva Urecal, the "poor man's" Marjorie Main) and even columnist Wallace Ford whom she admits to that she reads his column but didn't reveal it on the stand because it might hurt her case.While this plot line has been overdone (often very predictably), it has never been done so fun, and you can see elements of later comedies with the same theme ("Murder By Death" and "Clue") in its short 64 minute running time. A film so much fun deserves a higher rating because the laugh quotient is greater than normal. To say more would spoil the delights.
John Howard Reid
Perennial second-from-the-left-cop-in-the-station-house, George Guhl, has a featured role, would you believe, in Monogram's 1941 tale, Murder by Invitation, which turns out to be a sort of Mrs Longfellow Deeds Meets the Cat and the Canary. With halfway competent direction and a halfway appropriate budget, this may well have turned out as sleeper of the year. The money is there all right, but Phil Rosen's direction is strictly from hunger. The picture's potential is unrealized. Obviously left largely to their own devices, the players do what they can to salvage the film. Although inclined to over-act, I thought Sarah Padden carried off the main role with a fair amount of conviction, although other reviewers disagree. George Guhl was a big letdown, and I was also disappointed that Marian Marsh was simply just another pretty blonde in this outing and no longer the charismatic charmer of Beauty and the Boss.
Hitchcoc
This is a formula piece. It's been done a hundred times. The greed of the relatives causes them to try to get the old lady committed. Their motives are so obvious that any chance they had goes down the tube within minutes. Now they're in over their heads and have to use their resources to survive. Meanwhile, the red herrings start swimming upstream. I should have hated it, but the crazy overacting and general being of the film are rather pleasant in a maniacal sort of way. The conclusion is satisfying and justice is done. The one drawback is that the bad guys are so pathetic and incompetent that they don't pose much of a threat.
dbborroughs
An old lady is taken to court by her heirs because they feel she is wasting her fortune and that she should be put away for her own safety. Turning the tables on the greed family in the courtroom she insists that any of her heirs who want a piece of her money show up at her house that night. What happens next is a very enjoyable murder/comedy as people start dying as every scrambles to find the fortune.Anyone expecting anything other than a silly time should stay as far away from this movie as possible. Yes, there is a mystery, but there are a good bunch of laughs as well, as reporter Wallace Ford and his girl wander among the crazies trying to get a story while trying to stay alive.I really like this film, especially the old lady that who is smarter than the relatives who are trying to put her way. This is a good friend of a movie that I'll take out now and again when I need to just sit and veg.If you come across it, by all means give it a try, we all need to laugh now and then.
AD
