A Ruth Gordon play is the source for this late in career comedy/drama for the great Rosalind Russell who in the span of a decade had taken on some very challenging roles in film versions of stage plays. She's a widowed millionairess, the matriarch of the Lord family (no relation to the Lords of "The Philadelphia Story" or even "One Life to Live"), and was apparently once in charge of the family company. Now retired, she races around on the highways of Southern California beaches with sweet granddaughter Sandra Dee, and after singing "My Baby Loves Nobody But Me", decides to buy a rundown downtown Los Angeles theater which like in the soon to be produced Broadway musical "Follies" is about to be torn down to make room for a parking lot. But her daughters Vanessa Brown and Audrey Meadows (in a deliciously nasty role) and attorney son-in-law Leslie Nielsen are not thrilled about her spending her money the way she wants (uncontent with their monthly stipend of $100,000 each!) and plot a nasty way to get control of the estate. Yes, this is a comedy with dramatic moments about elder abuse, so for the middle part of the film, it goes from lighthearted and gay to really depressing.
There are many things to like about this film, particularly the cast. Reginald Owen as Roz's butler and Margaret Hamilton as the maid are hysterically funny in their small parts, with Meadows cracking about Hamilton that she's ready to fly off on her broomstick. Having done musical theater across the country for over a decade, Hamilton actually gets to sing here, and isn't all that bad, even if it is done for comic effect. After all, she's the maid, not Aunt Eller or Madame Armfeldt here, roles she acted and sang on stage. Russell's "My Sister Eileen" leading man (Brian Aherne) is reunited here with her as the family attorney who has loved Russell secretly for years. Juanita Moore, who had audiences in tears as Susan Kohner's devoted mother in "Imitation of Life", plays the naive nurse at the mental institution where Russell is kidnapped and planted to get her out of the way, and it is obvious that she is completely unaware of the elder abuse going on. Unfortunately, some of her lines are rather silly, making her character overall as a mental hospital nurse not very realistic.
With their similar deep voices, it's not difficult to picture Russell and Meadows as related, even though they were only 15 years apart. Dee describes her aunt in rather vicious terms, but it is very apparent that as soon as she appears that she is exactly like Dee described her to be. Brown, the more submissive daughter, is still greedy, but it is insinuated that she's more guided in her schemes by Meadows and her even more greedy husband (Nielsen) who may seem classy and debonair but would put his own wife and daughter in a mental institution as well if he felt he could get his hands on their money. Nielsen may be remembered as a romantic lead, but he also played his share of villains as well, going as far as slicing the wrists of his very wealthy wife Barbara Stanwyck in the TV movie "The Letters" so he could get his hands on her money and marry her own sister. There are a few nice surprises here, especially the way Aherne, Dee and James Farentino (as Aherne's younger partner) get together to rescue Russell, and the court hearing which exposes everybody for who they are and gives Brown a nice little moment in atoning for her sins. Ultimately however, the mixed moods of the theme might be disturbing, and the idea of the not yet really elderly Russell tossed into the snake pit by her own children is somewhat depressing even if everything does get resolved in a nice fashion.
There are many things to like about this film, particularly the cast. Reginald Owen as Roz's butler and Margaret Hamilton as the maid are hysterically funny in their small parts, with Meadows cracking about Hamilton that she's ready to fly off on her broomstick. Having done musical theater across the country for over a decade, Hamilton actually gets to sing here, and isn't all that bad, even if it is done for comic effect. After all, she's the maid, not Aunt Eller or Madame Armfeldt here, roles she acted and sang on stage. Russell's "My Sister Eileen" leading man (Brian Aherne) is reunited here with her as the family attorney who has loved Russell secretly for years. Juanita Moore, who had audiences in tears as Susan Kohner's devoted mother in "Imitation of Life", plays the naive nurse at the mental institution where Russell is kidnapped and planted to get her out of the way, and it is obvious that she is completely unaware of the elder abuse going on. Unfortunately, some of her lines are rather silly, making her character overall as a mental hospital nurse not very realistic.
With their similar deep voices, it's not difficult to picture Russell and Meadows as related, even though they were only 15 years apart. Dee describes her aunt in rather vicious terms, but it is very apparent that as soon as she appears that she is exactly like Dee described her to be. Brown, the more submissive daughter, is still greedy, but it is insinuated that she's more guided in her schemes by Meadows and her even more greedy husband (Nielsen) who may seem classy and debonair but would put his own wife and daughter in a mental institution as well if he felt he could get his hands on their money. Nielsen may be remembered as a romantic lead, but he also played his share of villains as well, going as far as slicing the wrists of his very wealthy wife Barbara Stanwyck in the TV movie "The Letters" so he could get his hands on her money and marry her own sister. There are a few nice surprises here, especially the way Aherne, Dee and James Farentino (as Aherne's younger partner) get together to rescue Russell, and the court hearing which exposes everybody for who they are and gives Brown a nice little moment in atoning for her sins. Ultimately however, the mixed moods of the theme might be disturbing, and the idea of the not yet really elderly Russell tossed into the snake pit by her own children is somewhat depressing even if everything does get resolved in a nice fashion.