There Goes the Groom

Burgess Meredith gives a good effort as a newly minted millionaire rushing home from the gold fields of Alaska - only to find his sweetheart engaged to a stodgy doctor. Ann Sothern is the sweetheart's kid sister who always had a crush on Burgess. Will he notice her this time around?

Sothern is the nominal star of this comedy-romance but mostly finds herself playing it straight to a bunch of other screwballs. Mary Boland is moderately amusing as the girls' bossy mother; unfortunately, her character is mostly annoying rather funny. William Brisbane as a cash-hungry brother and Onslow Stevens as the dull doctor are equally unfunny.

One bright spot is Roger Imhof as Meredith's gold mining buddy, an old prospector type who has tagged along home and offers Meredith advice, mainly of the let's-get-out-of-here-and-go-back-to-Alaska variety. Imhoff gets most of the picture's best wisecracks.

It's a decent enough plot if not particularly original. However, the characters here - especially the two leads - are a little short on believable motivations. Meredith is indifferent to Sothern, and then suddenly he is engaged to her, and then...

Burgess Meredith is actually quite fun to watch, especially in the sequence where he pretends to have amnesia. More interaction between him and Sothern might have made this picture more believable and more fun too.