I love old films...absolutely love 'em. However, I am not so infatuated with old movies to ignore that occasionally the studios made a turkey...and "There Goes the Groom" is just awful.
Burgess Meredith plays an oddball who goes off to Alaska to make his fortune--leaving his fiancée (or a lady he THINKS is his fiancée) behind. However, when he returns, she's engaged to someone else and she barely remembers him. But, when she and her slimy family learns that he is now very rich, they fall all over themselves trying to suck up to him and rob him blind. The only one who doesn't is the nice sister (Ann Sothern) and she soon becomes engaged to him. But through the course of the film, he sees that her family is just evil and mercenary and so to get out of the marriage, he pretends to have amnesia!! At this point, the film becomes just god-awful, as Meredith pretends (very broadly) to be crazy and incapable of marrying her.
The writing, acting and direction are all poor. As for the acting and writing, the only character that worked well was Sothern's. She was believable. Meredith came off as some bozo and the family just seemed boorish and unbelievable. An amazingly dopey film towards the end and an embarrassment for all involved...and perhaps part of the reason Meredith never became an A-list star!
