Many Happy Returns (1934) User Reviews

A Little Too Much Gracie

[boblipton · 6/10 · 9 September 2022]

Department store owner George Barbier returns from Europe to find that daughter Gracie Allen has turned the property into a bird sanctuary, while other daughter Jon Marsh has taken up with Ray Milland, and they're off to Hollywood to star in a movie. So Barbier marries Miss Allen to George Burns at $10 a mile, sends them to Hollywood, and hires a couple of gangsters to kidnap Miss Marsh back. Instead Burns & Allen take the juveniles' role in the movie.

Well, that doesn't sound good for the movies. It's an hour of Miss Allen doing her nitwit routines, which is charming, but goes on a bit too long. There are plenty of specialty acts to vary the comedy, like Veloz & Yolanda, Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, Duke Ellington on the piano, and Larry Adler playing the harmonica. The best sequence is the one in which Miss Allen wrecks the movie.

George and Gracie Get Married

[view_and_review · 6/10 · 16 April 2024]

This is the fifth early movie I've seen with George Burns in it, and it looks to me that he didn't do anything without his partner Gracie Allen. The two were a comedy tandem in which he played the straight man and Gracie played the ditz.

In "Many Happy Returns" George Burns and Gracie Allen again play characters with no name change. They worked for Gracie's father, Horatio Allen (George Barbier). Horatio owned a radio station which Gracie was attempting to get torn down and converted into a bird sanctuary or something like that.

Why?

Who knows why Gracie does the things she does.

Horatio had Gracie see a psychoanalyst. The psychoanalyst concluded that Gracie was stuck on George, or as she called him, Georgie Porgie. Perhaps if she married George she would stop monkeying with her father's business and behave normally. Upon hearing that, Horatio offered George his daughter, Gracie, except George wasn't amenable to marrying Gracie if he had anything to say about it.

Horatio wouldn't be denied his request, or should I say demand. He gave George an ultimatum: marry his daughter or be fired. When George again rejected the offer, Horatio offered him $10/mile of travel on their honeymoon from New York to California. That came out to $30,000, which George couldn't refuse.

So they were married.

The rest of the movie would be more of Gracie and her goofiness, George trying to remain sane, and a kidnapping plot involving Florence (Joan Marsh), Horatio's other daughter.

Free on Internet Archive.

Poor Burns & Allen vehicle

[malcolmgsw · 4/10 · 3 December 2005]

I am a fan of Burns & Allen.I am old enough to remember their television series being shown on BBC in the 50s.I think that they are a funny team even if it is a bit one joke all the time.I believe that they were less well served by their films and unfortunately this film proves that point.Unfortunately the antics of Gracie in this film are unfunny and over the top.I think that if i hear her shout "Georgieporgie" at Burns one more time i will put my fist through the screen.Interestingly they are not top billed this dubious honour belongs to Guy Lombardo and His Orchestra.So if you are a fan of this duo i would say ,give this one a miss.