Contemporary reviews were very positive but from a distance of almost 90 years 'The Richest Girl in the World' does not look that good. Stories of rich women who fall for relatively poor men have been told many times, and often better than here. There are two originals aspects: First, the rich girl (Miriam Hopkins) has a secretary (Fay Wray) who impersonates her to shield her from media attention, and second, she designs a number of tests to determine whether the poor man (Joel McCrea) is really in love with her or only with her money. These tests all involve pairing off Wray and McCrea in ever more extreme ways. It is this latter aspect that makes the whole story feel contrived and unconvincing. As for acting, the lead actors are all doing well. If this is an enjoyable piece of entertainment, it is because of them rather than because of the plot. However, 'The Richest Girl in the World' came out the same year as 'It Happened One Night', where Claudette Colbert was the rich girl and Clark Gable the poor man, which goes to show that Hollywood was able to tell this kind of story in much better ways than director William A. Seiter does here. The upshot is: this is a nice enough film but in no way outstanding.
