User Reviews

Determined to marry the down on his luck Wallace Ford, wealthy heiress Gloria Shea defies her family and thus gets no financial assistance, setting themselves on the road to financial struggle in this low budget marital comedy from Monogram, one of the major poverty row studios. It's a pleasant time filler with some hysterical performances from Edgar Kennedy and Maidel Turner as the Abner and Gladys Kravitz ("Bewitched") type couple next door who intrude on their lives every chance they get, mainly because of Turner's social climbing ambitions upon finding out that Shea is from a wealthy family. Kennedy, as Ford's boss, fires Ford, believing that he considers him and Turner beneath them. This causes financial issues and Shea's overbearing mother (Betty Blythe) does everything she can to get Shea to return home and leave her husband. But as marital history proves, if you can get through the first hundred years, you can get through anything, and it will take some patience and understanding to make the marriage of these two opposites work, kicking the neighbors and family to the curb so they can work out their issues.

Nobody can get a word in edgewise in any scene where Turner appears, spouting annoying comments in thinking she's funny. In fact, Turner is very funny, but it isn't the lines, but the serious way in which she delivers them comically, oblivious to the fact that she is so not funny that indeed her performance is very funny. I didn't think much of the chemistry between Ford (a dependable character actor with a lengthy career) and Shea, a young ingenue who left movies when only 26. It's a rather ordinary story of the problems of newly married couples made more interesting by the various situations which occur along that road, especially when Turner basically invites herself in, forces Shea to play hostess to her and Kennedy on their first day in, then intrudes when Shea invites her family over and unintentionally creates the chaos that leads Ford to lose his job. Not bad for a B Monogram comedy made better by its comical performances than its overall ordinary plotline.

"Money Means Nothing" is equivalent to a one hour bad sitcom. It was full of terrible comedy, odd characters, and strange situations. The only thing it was missing was the laugh track: which I desperately needed, to know when to laugh.

The key parts of the movie were a girl meeting a boy, them getting married, them facing adversity, and them overcoming the adversity. Based upon the key elements, this was a universal plot that should've been enjoyable on some level. The problem was the characters, the nature of the adversity, and other supporting elements.

The movie started very oddly with a young rich girl named Julie Ferris (Gloria Shea) following a gang out of a diner and tailing them. It really made no sense. I guess the implication was that she loved adventure and excitement up to the point that she'd even follow this group of criminals on their caper just to get some of that excitement.

Well, that small adventure, which was the jacking of some tire delivery trucks, led her to meet Ken McKay (Wallace Ford). Ken helped her with her stalled car and for some inexplicable reason she was in love with the guy after that. Maybe no man had ever done a small favor for her before. It certainly wasn't how he came on to her because he never did. However, from then on she was stalking him every day at his place of business until they became an item. Her family was not really receptive to her romance. They were the typical wealthy family who didn't approve of dating outside of their class, and Ken McKay was a working class guy from Brooklyn.

Against her family's wishes, and with threat of being cut off financially, Julie decided to marry - no she insisted that she marry Ken. In fact, she went to his job and threw herself at him. She proposed to him. Initially he denounced the idea due to his own financial straits, then he defiantly accepted the idea out of spite when Julie's sister came by and said they would not get a dime if she married Ken.

The next time we saw them, they were playing husband and wife in his small apartment. That's when the aggravating characters increased from the one (Julie) to three. Ken and Julie had a horribly annoying couple as neighbors, and the husband was his boss. They were very intrusive, and the wife, Kerry Green (Maidel Turner), was terribly obnoxious, talkative, and nosy. It was clear that they were supposed to add spice and perhaps comedy to the overall production but all they did was drag it down further.

The McKays would face adversity when Ken was fired by his boss, Herbert Green (Edgar Kennedy), upon the urging of his wife. Herbert was so petty he fired Ken because his wife (that would be Herbert's wife) told him that Julie said he looked like a butler.

Like I said: sitcom stuff.

He even went so far as to smear Ken when other companies called for references. It left Ken and Julie struggling.

Julie had to resort to even hocking her fur coat, but she was determined to stick by the side of the poor man she hounded into marriage. It was Hollywood's attempt to show that a woman in love would stick by her man's side through thick and thin. I saw it as an adventuresome woman trying out the hard life and sticking with it out of pride. I only say that because of how absurd and impetuous her relationship was with this really basic working man.

Ken would get his job back in a very improbable way. He was hired to drive a truck for a tire company. It just so happened that the tire company that hired him was stealing tires from his old company. Why would criminals involve a straight-laced guy who could very well be the fly in their ointment; one will never know. By the time Ken found out who they were and what they were doing, he was already driving the stolen tires and the police had been dispatched. Somehow, once the trucks were all pulled over, the police were able to ascertain that Ken wasn't a willing participant in the caper. I guess he had an honest face. At any rate, yada yada yada, he got his job back and he and Julie lived happily ever after.

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