Brewster's Millions (1945)
*** (out of 4)
Screwball comedy has Monty Brewster (Dennis O'Keefe) returning home from the war and finding himself with an inheritance for $8 million. The only catch is that he must spend $1 million within a two month period in order to collect the rest of the money. One of the deals is that he can't tell anyone so the people around him, including his fiancé (Helen Walker) and best friend (Joe Sawyer) thinks he's crazy. This was the fifth version of this famous story and two more would follow with the most recent being the 1985 version with Richard Pryor and John Candy. Having only seen tha version (the 1914 Cecil B. DeMille film is lost) this one here plays much better, although there aren't quite as many laughs. For a comedy one might say this fails because there aren't too many laughs but I didn't find that to be the case because there's so much innocent charm that one can't help but get caught up in the story and the situation O'Keefe finds himself in. O'Keefe really makes the film go with his frantic performance, which is very good. The way he slowly starts to lose his mind as he can't get all the money spent is priceless and makes for a good time. June Havoc, Gail Patrick, Mischa Auer and John Litel add nice support as well. Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, a black actor, does a great job playing O'Keefe's servant and delivers most of the laughs in the film. It's also worth noting that this movie was banned in Memphis because it was deemed that their relationship was too "equal in nature" and the people of Memphis didn't want people watching a movie where the races were shown as equal. While the film isn't a major success or a masterpiece of comedy, it does work for what it is. The nice performances by the now forgotten actors is another reason to watch this film even though it's rather rare.
