As a girl I sometimes wonder, let me not
kid myself I fantasize, what would happen if I was ever met/was attracted to a
man with a lot of money and would I be attracted to him as a person or just
because he has money. I am a pretty tough chick when it comes to liking people
if a rich guy is going to be a dick with no personality then there is no way I could
ever be attracted to that guy no matter how loaded they are. I would rather be
married to a nice guy who is not loaded than a guy who is rich but is a dick. In
the 1934 RKO film The Richest Girl in the
World the richest girl has trouble finding someone who likes her just for
who she is or if they like her because of her money.
Dorothy
Hunter (Miriam Hopkins) was two years old when her parents died in 1912 on the
Titanic and leaving her their fortune. She is raised by a guardian named John
Connors. In those twenty-four years Dorothy has never really been seen. She
plays a clever game, instead of she herself going out into the public she sends
her secretary Sylvia Lockwood (Fay Wray) to impersonate her and do her public
business and in turn she often acts as Sylvia when. The act is a test for if
anyone falls for Sylvia playing Dorothy than the real Dorothy knows that the
man is only after the money not true love. Sylvia is beginning to get tired of
the routine mostly because she is married and her husband wants to move with
her back to England.
Dorothy
is engaged to be married but her fiancé breaks off the marriage because he does
not want to be known simply as the richest girl in the world’s husband he feels
he will never be happy. Dorothy says she is not the romantic type and really
does not seem to be too bothered by the break up but that night as Sylvia and
her husband Phil (Reginald Denny)dancing and becomes upset and a bit jealous. Dorothy’s
engagement party is set for the next day but Connors decides to hold it anyway.
At the party Sylvia acts as Dorothy and vice versa. Dorothy as Sylvia meets a
very handsome man named Tony Travers (Joel McCrea). She walks away for a moment
and he is on a canoe with Sylvia. Dorothy gets upset and goes out on a
powerboat with Phil. The powerboat makes enough of a wave to knock the canoe
down which was the plan. Dorothy has Phil “rescue” Sylvia (he says that Sylvia
was a medal winner in swimming and she winds up saving him) so that Tony cannot
get close to her.
The
plan works. After Tony changes into a robe Dorothy as Sylvia goes to talk to
him. Tony bluntly says that he would marry for money but also that Sylvia as
Dorothy was a nice girl. They share a few drinks and come to like each other.
The
next day Connors has Tony looked into and he checks out well coming from a nice
Boston family. Sylvia thinks Tony is the one for Dorothy she likes him too.
Dorothy has another plan: she wants to try to push Tony into asking Sylvia as
her to see if he will fall in love with her for money or because she is nice.
Well Tony really falls for Dorothy as Sylvia the secretary. He accepts an
invitation to Dorothy’s house in the Adirondacks for the weekend. Tony is the
first to arrive with Connors calling to say that they are fifty miles away and
stuck because of the storm but they are really still at the house. Dorothy as Sylvia
arrives at the house later on. The two are all alone. They have a very nice
scene in front of the fire on the couch where he tells her a sweet story. Tony
confesses his love for her but Dorothy tells her he would be much happier with
Sylvia as Dorothy. She feels terrible that he is in love with the secretary not
the real Dorothy.
When
everyone arrives the next day Sylvia is so awkward around Tony since she is
already married and feels bad that Phil is around to see them together. That night
Tony proposes to Sylvia as Dorothy even though they have nothing in common. After
Sylvia goes into her room Tony is sitting on the steps when he sees Phil going
into her room. In the morning he is furious with Sylvia as Dorothy and breaks
things off. Dorothy as Sylvia saves the day by saying Phil came into the room
to see her instead. Poor Phil when he comes to the table all happy not knowing
at all what is going on gets punched by Tony pretty hard. Tony tells Sylvia as
Dorothy that she should fire Dorothy as Sylvia but then carries Dorothy off.
Connors
finds out that Dorothy and Tony are on a ship headed to France and were married
before they got on the ship. Only Dorothy married under Sylvia’s name.
The
plot is a little complicated to explain in the written sense so I hope I did
not blow your mind or completely confuse you. Identity plots are complicated
for me to explain sometimes.
The
cast is perfect. Miriam Hopkins is a good actress but I find her odd when it
comes to chemistry with her male costars. I have seen a few of Hopkins’s other
films and she was so good as an actress and just so different to me it seems
like she dominated over her male leads that made her not able to have chemistry
with them. I do not know it could be just me with this but that is how I feel
about her. Joel McCrea oozes chemistry no matter who his leading lady is but in
this film the other half of that chemistry was not there. He was fantastic as
the poor average Joe caught in Dorothy’s game. Fay Wray is a very good actress
and just in her small scenes she was fabulous. She and Reginald Denny as Phil
were adorable together, now they had great chemistry. You could believe they
were husband and wife and loved each other especially in the scene where they
dance on the porch when Dorothy gets upset watching them. Wray cracked me up
when Tony was asking her what she wanted to do when they were at the house in
the Adirondacks. She was so awkward because she did not know what to do since
she was not herself attracted to him and she was already married.
The
Richest Girl in the World is a cute film but it falls flat towards the end. There
is a lot that is left unexplained and it does not go through the philosophical
nor psychological aspects of the situation. The deception is completely ignored
so in the end instead of marrying just for love Tony winds up marrying money as
well. The problem is with the script. It has its moments but it is just too
light and although I love the running time at an hour and ten minutes I would
have liked to have seen it go on a bit longer just to play out the deception
and other things that were left out. The film just ends which kind of sucks. I guess
to sum the mess of my explanation the plot is an intriguing comedy but it is
not developed well enough. But if you can look at The Richest Girl in the World for what it is the film is really
cute with great performances.
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