So You Want to Be an Heir (1953)
*** (out of 4)
A somewhat different pace for the Joe McDoakes series has our hero receiving a letter from his dying grandmother saying he's going to inherit her million dollar estate. Joe rushes to her bedside and soon his other relatives are trying to kill him. This comedy actually enters the "old dark house" genre and manages to be rather funny even though this isn't the type of film we come to expect from McDoakes. George O'Hanlon plays not only Joe but also his uncle, cousin, grandmother and another character. He actually does a very good job at playing all the relatives and manages to make all the characters quite funny. There are many spoofs of the old dark house genre including the various murder suspects and the big bats flying around. It's also worth noting that there's one scene where a deformed lawyer tells McDoakes to "walk this way" and McDoakes actually walks the same way. This is the same gag later used in Young Frankenstein so you have to think either Brooks or Wilder saw this film.