If I Had A Million 05/13/23
KL Studio Classics
Blu-ray
Paramount’s nutty omnibus movie has seven directors and a fistful of top stars: Gary Cooper, W.C. Fields, Charles Laughton, Wynne Gibson, Charlie Ruggles, George Raft, Jack Oakie and Frances Dee. A dying millionaire divides up his fortune between eight strangers, each of whom mishandles their windfall inheritance. Joe Mankiewicz wrote four episodes. Ernst Lubitsch directed the Laughton sequence, a nicely sustained item with a one-joke payoff. Fields and Alison Skipworth use their fortune to lay a trap for eight road-hog bad drivers. Allan Arkush joins Daniel Kramer on Kino’s commentary. It’s pre-Code mirth, reviewed by Charlie Largent on Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
05/13/23