I was thirteen when this film came out and back then I spent Saturdays at the matinees. My dad had managed somehow to get free yearly passes to the local theater and I took advantage. My mom and dad maybe saw three or four pictures (movies) a year. But I loved movies. Now some almost 60 years later, I'm watching this on TCM. Without a doubt film making has changed over the decades and this is simple B film escapist fare. Like many films then, casting directors didn't seem to do too well in getting ages correct. Debbie Reynolds was too young and far too attractive to be interested in Tony Randall but who cares. Did Steve McQueen look like a sixteen year old in The Blob?
The plot is silly. Reynold's (Marietta Larkin) father Sidney Larkin (Paul Douglas) has upset his wealthy gentleman "farmer" neighbor Wendell Burnshaw (Philip Ober) and he has decided he has had it with his less than desirable neighbor and decides to sic the IRS on Sidney Larkin via the persons of Oliver Kelsey (Fred Clark) and Lorenzo Charlton (Tony Randall). What follows are a series of misunderstandings in which Charlton mistaken believes he may have done something with Marietta which is leading to a shotgun marriage. Of course this is the 50's so we all know nothing happened or will.
The plot to have Pop Larkin lose his farm is doomed to fail from the start. Early on Pop mentions his family doesn't deal in money since the government took a bunch of horses off his great grandfather back in 1863 and never paid for them. You know the bleaker the picture looks for Pop that that failure of government to pay its bill will be worth millions in interest. So, a good audience sits back and watches some great character actors do their job and enjoy a young Reynolds in her early days before "Tammy and the Bachelor, " "How the West was Won," "and The Unsinkable Molly Brown."
The plot is silly. Reynold's (Marietta Larkin) father Sidney Larkin (Paul Douglas) has upset his wealthy gentleman "farmer" neighbor Wendell Burnshaw (Philip Ober) and he has decided he has had it with his less than desirable neighbor and decides to sic the IRS on Sidney Larkin via the persons of Oliver Kelsey (Fred Clark) and Lorenzo Charlton (Tony Randall). What follows are a series of misunderstandings in which Charlton mistaken believes he may have done something with Marietta which is leading to a shotgun marriage. Of course this is the 50's so we all know nothing happened or will.
The plot to have Pop Larkin lose his farm is doomed to fail from the start. Early on Pop mentions his family doesn't deal in money since the government took a bunch of horses off his great grandfather back in 1863 and never paid for them. You know the bleaker the picture looks for Pop that that failure of government to pay its bill will be worth millions in interest. So, a good audience sits back and watches some great character actors do their job and enjoy a young Reynolds in her early days before "Tammy and the Bachelor, " "How the West was Won," "and The Unsinkable Molly Brown."