Gold Rush Maisie

These Maisie B-programmers were all based on a tough-as-nails (yet tea-totaling) 30-ish Brooklyn dame who finds herself in some oddball situation where she's broke &/or stranded and manages to get herself out of the jam and help &/or enlighten nearly everyone she comes into contact with (usually landing a $25/week job in the process). Here she's finds herself STRANDED in the middle of Arizona in a broken down Model A (the thing's just 9 years old and had the snot beat out of it) 100-miles late for a singing job in some dive. She meets an anti-social Lee Bowman and his inexplicable sidekick Slim Summerville (imagine Tom Poston's role on Newhart without the humor) and encounters a family of displaced Arkansas sharecroppers traveling to a gold strike (imagine Grapes of Wrath) after her job falls through. The gold strike is back near Bowman's property. This is one of the most meandering and dull Maisies ever made (remember the production was plagued by a change in directors). Absolutely no drama--- the only mildly curious aspect is why Bowman is the way he is (did he discover gold and is hidin' it?). Whatever buildup there is in the plot is deflated at the end, except for the 'Gold is where you find it' theme. It's also got the tragic Scotty Beckett in the role of the sharecropper's kid. Ann's still quite cute and makes with the snappy comebacks, but this entry amounts to nothing much more worthy than a rainy day time waster. Yawn...