Rich Relations (1937) User Reviews

Rich relations?

[denisa-dellinger · 5/10 · 21 November 2014]

I love old movies and so when this film came on a free movie app, I jumped at the chance to watch an old romance movie. As it comes out in 1937 and is of poor quality, I tried to look beyond the grainy features. This film is about a Mary Tyler Mooresque career girl trying to make good in the city as a secretary. She just happened to have the last name of a very wealthy family in Chicago which is where the story took place. When asked if she was related, she said distantly, which really was such a little fib that it could have very well have been true. Within two seconds of the film's beginning we see what pretty career women may have put up with in the thirties, sexual harassment on a grand scale. The men got close to her and began making innuendos and trying to get her to go out with them. As a working girl, I became very uncomfortable with this kind of lecherous atmosphere. Nancy, the main character was not a particularly strong character and began to play into the game. She was warned off one of the men by another coworker who seemed to think the man was her property. Nancy went out with him anyway. She went out with another male within the company, so there was a little competition. Nancy seems to fall in love with the wrong guy which always seems to happen with girls in romance movies. When her little white lie comes to light, it becomes not so little. A surprise ending made me scratch my head and say "What?"

Poor

[boblipton · 4/10 · 24 May 2017]

Florence Grant plays Nancy Tilton. She moves to Chicago for a job as a stenographer and is pursued by Barry Norton and loved chastely by Ralph Forbes. Complications ensue when it turns out she has the same last name as prominent Chicagoans and people keep telling her her grandmother is coming home from Europe.

It's acted in a low-key manner, which might be interesting, except it isn't, and Muriel Evans speaks in an annoying, baby-girl voice. It's a pure Poverty Row production, and the interesting talent, including Franklin Pangborn and Marry Carr are used to no particular effect. Skip this one.

Hard to like because the leading lady is a jerk-face.

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 1 October 2014]

SPOILERS

Frances Grant plays Nancy, a not particularly likable and oddly desirable woman who lies in order to get a job as a stenographer. Because her last name is Tilton, the manager thinks she's related to THE Tiltons, some rich society swells. Now taking the job in such a situation is dishonest, but it was the Depression and she needed work...so I guess I could forgive this. However, soon Nancy and a co-worker, Trixie, begin arguing about a guy--and Trixie tells her to keep her hands off the guy. So, Nancy deliberately tries to get the guy--which really makes her seem like a b----. I found myself disliking her because of this early on in the film. However, later folks start to assume she is one of THE Toliver family and she cultivates this deception in order to get in with society and get a man she adores (though you really aren't sure why). Ultimately, there is a bizarro ending where you see that Nancy actually IS one of THE Tolivers and didn't even know it--making her a liar who isn't actually lying-- though she certainly intended to!

I hated this film and my reasons were numerous. The most obvious one I mentioned above--I disliked and didn't respect the leading character. She was deceptive and nasty. Additionally, she was vacillating between two men--both who looked almost identical to each other--and odd choice of casting and a confusing one. Another BIG problem was casting Jeanne Roberts, as she sounded exactly like Betty Boop and provided unwanted comic relief. Her voice grated on me and I just wanted to see someone yell "SHUT UP" and slap her whenever she talked! Finally, the ending was so very contrived and unbelievable that all the time spent watching the film never actually paid off. And what did I like? Nothing.

How to succeed in business and get past the water cooler dirt sessions.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 22 July 2015]

New employees are always trouble, that's the feeling of the office girls in this tale of office politics gone sour. Frances Grant is Nancy Tilton, a basically decent stenographer who attracts the attention of two men in the office where she has just been hired. Barry Norton is the playboy Don Blair who flirts with her instantly (inciting the snarled wrath of office troublemaker Muriel Evans), while supervisor Ralph Forbes (as Dave Walton) is far more noble in his attentions to her. Evan's Trixie gives Grant a polite but firm warning after the end of the first day, but it soon becomes apparent that she's a volcano about to explode over Norton's attentions to Grant rather than Evans. The theft of a purse puts suspicion on Grant, but it's obvious that she was framed. Realizing that this whole mess is more than she wants to handle during an 8 hour work day, Grant leaves town but is followed separately by both Norton and Evans which comes just as money from the company's safe disappears.

Oh, I can't forget Grant's little white lie about being related to Chicago's top society doyenne, and Norton's mother's attempts to social climb through this little tidbit. The assumptions that the same last name automatically makes people related isn't necessarily Grant's fault, but it sets her up to take the blame for the theft. Franklin Pangborn is only slightly prissy (as compared to normal) as the office manager, while Evans is downright loathsome as the vindictive Trixie. While I detested Trixie from the very beginning, I couldn't fault Evans for her deliciously malevolent performance. Jeanie Roberts adds stereotypical "dumb bunny" comic relief as Grant's one office friend. It's obvious that Forbes' Dave is far more deserving of Grant's affections than the pathetic Norton, but sometimes infatuation can blind people to the truth. The film does leave a few unanswered questions but has a few delicious exit lines which makes it all the more enjoyable.