TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

lynpalmer1 Not much of a plot after the marriage, more of a series of barely connected events in their home life. Much of the events centre around their son, Percy. They should have styled Loy's hair this way more often. She looks absolutely beautiful, as do her gowns. Would have been wonderful in colour. Don Ameche was no slouch in the looks department either. There is quite a bit of humour throughout the movie which holds up very well decades later. I laughed out loud at the rice throwing comment. Also the pull back while a jilted fiancé is giving a break -up speech. Contemporary humour in a movie set in the 19th century is rare. I actually wish they had made it a little longer as I really enjoyed watching Loy and Ameche together.

mark.waltz In the mid-late 1800's, a young lady from a farm near Boston decides to move far away and get as far away from pigs as possible. Her destination? A city named Brooklyn. Her goal? To find a rich man, hopefully fall in love with him, and marry him. Her reality? Sorry, maa'm. Ain't gonna happen. Your destiny is to end up with somebody as nutty as you are and live a very unconventional life.She's Myrna Loy. He's Don Ameche. They share a buggy ride from the carriage station she has just arrived in. He rushes off the buggy to throw rise at some newlyweds he's never met before. Ironically, she is going to the same street he is, and he graciously offers to carry his bag. Also ironically, he happens to live right next door to her cousin, and she interrupts his cousin's wife's tea party where she explains her reasons for moving to the very exclusive Brooklyn neighborhood. Ameche's landlady (Clara Blandick) rushes back and warns him about the social-climbing Loy, so what does Ameche do? He pays a visit on Loy and tells her that if she intends to go after somebody just because they are rich, then he is not her man. Her reaction? Tossing the bouquet of flowers he brought her.Between wearing a curly wig he's just styled with his new invention (the curling iron) on the balcony for Loy to spot then practically setting Blandick's house on fire with the smoking invention, it is only a matter of time before Ameche and Loy fall in love. She becomes engaged to the prominent Richard Gaines only to find out that he intends to become a hog farmer. Watch as Loy rushes out to reveal her true feelings to Ameche then Gaines' confrontation of the two whom he finds kissing. Period comedy has never been as funny or irreverent, but when you've got comic legends like Ameche and Loy paired together for the only time, what else can you expect? Their marriage is an unconventional one too with an equally unconventional young son (Bobby Driscoll) who is due for a date with the switch when he plants a yarn ball with protruding knitting needles on a visitor's chair. Ameche and Driscoll pick out switches from the tree outside and Ameche strikes fear into the loving mother Loy as he sets to teach Driscoll a lesson which he'll never forget. Punishment with a true moral lesson which goes against "Spare the rod. Spoil the child" and will have you both laughing and possibly crying at the same time.Then there's the presence of eccentric artist Rhys Williams who is interrupted by every possible interruption as he prepares to paint the portrait of the annoyed Ameche. Pickle-pussed maid Renie Riano offers her two cents, then Driscoll comes in, and finally the family pooch. Poor Williams is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. This documents the episodic nature of the structure of this film, somewhat plot less, but never boring. Each segment provides a lesson as well as laughs, sort of a variation of "Life With Father" as told from the point of view of the couple as newly married. The film's last few minutes take more of a serious turn, but that too has a twist. This is totally enjoyable on every level, a nice obscure comedy about a real life inventor that doesn't profess to be anything close to accuracy, but as fiction, it is a ton of fun.

drednm Myrna Loy and Don Ameche star in this excellent comedy/drama based on stories about real-life inventor Hiram Maxim's life. Episodic storyline has Loy leaving her rural pig farm and heading to the city to marry a rich man. Instead she meets and marries a poor would-be inventor and raises a family.Loy looks great and is excellent as Jane. She gives a warm and funny performance. Ameche is also good as Maxim, the slightly off-center inventor who marches to his own drummer. His inventions are mentioned in passing but show that he becomes a famous and wealthy man. The real story of Maxim and his legal problems with women and many failed inventions is not told.Bobby Driscoll gives a solid performance as son Percy (who would eventually write the stories the film is based on), a boy definitely in the mold of his father. Others in the cast are Molly Lamont as the cousin, Richard Gaines as blowhard Josephus, Rhys Williams as the artist, Sara Padden and Renie Riano as maids, and Howard Freeman as the committee chairman.Excellent period production sets and costumes and two star performances make this one a unknown gem worth looking for.

RayDruian Based on Hiram Percy Maxim's memoir, 'A Genius in the Family,' this film attempts, rather poorly, to explore the comedic aspects of Maxim's relationship to his father, Hiram Steven Maxim. Taken by itself, it's a rather superficial film about the man who revolutionized the machine gun, by inventing the version that operates on the power of the bullets' expelled gases. Maxim's accomplishments are hardly mentioned, instead depending on the fictionalized relationships between his wife and son. The younger Maxim, by the way, founded the American Radio Relay League, the national organization of radio hams. While he he is famous to that particular fraternity, he is virtually unknown elsewhere, and even his father's fame is now largely forgotten.