You know from the drawings of the cast during the opening credits set to the title song that you're in for a good time. Starring the most lovable old man of the 1950s, this is a funny case of purposeful mistaken identity as a wealthy man pretends to be poor to find out who will be nice to him.
Charles Coburn drafts a will on what he thinks is his deathbed and leaves his entire fortune to the family of the woman he loved but didn't marry in his youth. On advice of his advisers, he decides to find out what kind of people will be inheriting his millions, so he shaves his beard, packs a suitcase, and rents a room in their little house as "John Smith". He gets a job as a soda jerk in the father's drugstore and learns to love the family that might have been his. Before long, he throws his pills away and learns that happiness is the greatest medicine.
Within the family of soon-to-be millionaires, Piper Laurie and her mother Lynn Bari get to wear some gorgeous 1920s costumes and hairstyles, and William Reynolds is constantly in need of a new racoon coat. Lynn is obsessed with money and high society but her husband Larry Gates is happy with his life and his drugstore. Piper is in love with Rock Hudson, a lowly soda jerk, and her mother doesn't approve. The youngest daughter, Gigi Perreau, is a doll as she becomes their lodger's new best friend, teaching him how to dance and paint.
This movie is really cute, so if you love Charles Coburn in his delightful comedies like the similar The Devil and Miss Jones, or other movies like It Happened on 5th Avenue or It Started with Eve, you'll like this one, too. Keep your eyes open during the drugstore scene after he gets his new job. You'll only see him for five seconds, but you'll catch James Dean ordering a complicated ice cream soda!
Charles Coburn drafts a will on what he thinks is his deathbed and leaves his entire fortune to the family of the woman he loved but didn't marry in his youth. On advice of his advisers, he decides to find out what kind of people will be inheriting his millions, so he shaves his beard, packs a suitcase, and rents a room in their little house as "John Smith". He gets a job as a soda jerk in the father's drugstore and learns to love the family that might have been his. Before long, he throws his pills away and learns that happiness is the greatest medicine.
Within the family of soon-to-be millionaires, Piper Laurie and her mother Lynn Bari get to wear some gorgeous 1920s costumes and hairstyles, and William Reynolds is constantly in need of a new racoon coat. Lynn is obsessed with money and high society but her husband Larry Gates is happy with his life and his drugstore. Piper is in love with Rock Hudson, a lowly soda jerk, and her mother doesn't approve. The youngest daughter, Gigi Perreau, is a doll as she becomes their lodger's new best friend, teaching him how to dance and paint.
This movie is really cute, so if you love Charles Coburn in his delightful comedies like the similar The Devil and Miss Jones, or other movies like It Happened on 5th Avenue or It Started with Eve, you'll like this one, too. Keep your eyes open during the drugstore scene after he gets his new job. You'll only see him for five seconds, but you'll catch James Dean ordering a complicated ice cream soda!