Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952)

An aging heir-less millionaire wants to leave his fortune to the unsuspecting family of his first love but not before testing his prospective heirs by living with them under the guise of a poor boarder.

Director:

Douglas Sirk

Writers:

Joseph Hoffman (written for the screen by), Eleanor H. Porter (based on a story by)

Stars:

Piper Laurie, Rock Hudson, Charles Coburn

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Piper Laurie	...	Millicent Blaisdell
Rock Hudson	...	Dan Stebbins
Charles Coburn	...	Samuel Fulton / John Smith
Gigi Perreau	...	Roberta Blaisdell
Lynn Bari	...	Harriet Blaisdell
William Reynolds	...	Howard Blaisdell
Larry Gates	...	Charles Blaisdell
Skip Homeier	...	Carl Pennock
Paul Harvey	...	Judge Wilkins
Paul McVey	...	Lester Pennock
Gloria Holden	...	Clarissa Pennock
Frank Ferguson	...	Edward Norton
Forrest Lewis	...	Martin Quinn
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Natalie Schafer	...	Clarissa Pennock (replaced by Gloria Holden) (scenes deleted)

Storyline

Wealthy Samuel Fulton is getting older and has no family of his own. He decides to leave his estate to the family of his first love, who turned down his marriage proposal years ago because he was poor. But he wants to test the family before leaving his money to them. He takes a room in their home and a job in the father's shop. He anonymously grants them $100,000. Harriet Blaisdell moves the family into a mansion and makes plans to marry her daughter Millicent off to a socialite rather than her soda jerk boyfriend Dan. The money goes to their heads, and they soon find themselves broke, back in their old house, and back to their old lives. Father back in his shop, Millicent engaged to Dan, and everyone seemingly much happier. Hoping they learned their lesson, Fulton takes his leave of the family.

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Plot Keywords:

texas | 1920s | eccentricity | card game | clothesline | 

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Taglines:

The happy days ... the mad fads ... the great songs of the ... Roaring Twenties!

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

8 May 1953 (Finland)

Also Known As:

Oh Money, Money

Filming Locations:

Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal International Pictures (UI)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the library scene, Millie approaches Dan and asks: "What are you reading?", to which he responds: "'It'. Something which I evidently haven't got." Millie responds: "Why, I think you have, Dan. I think you have lots of 'it'". This is a reference to Elinor Glyn's 1927 novel 'It'. Glyn popularized the word 'it' as a euphemism for 'sex appeal'.

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Quotes

Youth at Soda Fountain: Hey, Gramps. I'll have a choc malt, heavy on the choc, plenty of milk, four spoons of malt, two scoops of vanilla ice cream, one mixed and one floating.
Samuel Fulton: [Sardonically] Would you like to come in Wednesday for a fitting? Thank you.

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Connections

Featured in Rock Hudson's Home Movies (1992)

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Soundtracks

Gimme a Little Kiss (Will 'Ya' Huh?)
(uncredited)
Written by Roy Turk, Jack Smith and Maceo Pinkard (1926)
Sung by Piper Laurie to Rock Hudson

User Reviews

Flapper Social Climbing

Although Piper Laurie and Rock Hudson are the stars of Has Anybody Seen My Gal, this film belongs to Charles Coburn. He does one of those patented foxy grandpa roles that he honed to perfection in such films as The Devil And Miss Jones and The More The Merrier.

Coburn plays one of the richest men in the world, Rockefeller type rich and the film opens in the Rockefeller town of Tarrytown where Coburn is one of their neighbors. He's making out a last will and testament and since he's got no family of any kind, he's decided to leave his money to the Blaidells who are the descendants of the woman he once courted, but who married someone else.

But of course the Blaisdells do bear checking out so Coburn gets out of his sickbed where he's enjoying all attention he's been getting and visits them incognito. The family consists of husband and wife Larry Gates and Lynn Bari and children Piper Laurie, Gigi Perreau, and William Reynolds. Bari is the daughter of his lost love, but she's got a lot of social climbing pretensions, Coburn sees more of his former sweetheart in her granddaughter Piper Laurie. Piper's going out kind of with the soda jerk in her father's pharmacy Rock Hudson. But Skip Homeier is hanging around and he's the son of the wealthiest people in their town and that's a match Lynn Bari would prefer.

Coburn gives them a test run so to speak. First he finagles his way into boarding with them under an assumed name. Then like John Beresford Tipton he bequeaths on them anonymously a check for $100,000.00. Of course it all goes to Bari's head and she drags the rest of the family somewhat reluctantly into a new lifestyle.

Has Anybody Seen My Gal is set in the Roaring Twenties and the music score is of that period, popular tunes played in the background and occasionally done by the cast. Coburn has some incredibly good scenes here with Gigi Perreau, he saves Piper Laurie from being arrested in a speakeasy raid, and does a mean Charleston once he learns. Bari comes off second best in the cast as a woman who learns that even comparative wealth can bring with it all kinds of problems. Her family the Blaisdells learns in a more humorous way, the lesson George Bailey learned that no man is a failure who has friends. We can't all be millionaires.

Four years away from when they shared Oscar nominations for Giant, Rock Hudson and James Dean were in the same film. Dean had some small bit parts in a few films and television work before hitting it big. This is one of those bits and you can plainly recognize him as one of the Roaring Twenties kids at the drugstore soda fountain.

Has Anybody Seen My Gal did good things for stars Rock Hudson and Piper Laurie, but this film belongs to Charles Coburn and the marvelously droll and funny performance he gave.