Life like a millionaire

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Life like a millionaire
Original title It happened on 5th Avenue
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1947
length 116 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Roy Del Ruth
script Script:
Everett Freeman ,
Vick Knight
Story: Frederick Stephani ,
Herbert Clyde Lewis
production Roy Del Ruth,
Joe Kaufmann for
Allied Artists
music Edward Ward
camera Henry Sharp
cut Richard V. Heermance
occupation

A life like a millionaire (original title: It Happened on 5th Avenue , German alternative title: The richest man in the world ) is an American comedy film directed by Roy Del Ruth from 1947.

action

Aloysius T. McKeever, an older hobo , has nested himself in an empty mansion on Fifth Avenue every winter for years . The property is owned by Michael J. O'Connor, the second richest man in the world, who always spends the winter at his Virginia estate . While walking, McKeever meets the homeless former GI Jim Bullock, who has just been thrown out of his apartment because a new skyscraper by O'Connor's company is to be built there. He invites Jim to the mansion. Jim later meets his former war comrades Whitey and Hank, who are desperately looking for accommodation with their families in overcrowded New York, and invites them to O'Connor's mansion. The 18-year-old Trudy "Smith" also gets lost with them. She claims to have just moved to New York and not found any accommodation, but who is secretly Michael O 's daughter who ran away from boarding school. Connor acts.

Her father tracks down Trudy, who starts to work as a simple clerk in a record store, and she tells of her love for Jim. However, Trudy has not yet told Jim of her true identity as she wants to be sure that he falls in love with her character and not her wealth. Trudy is able to persuade her father to move into the villa undetected as a homeless man "Mike" to take a closer look at Jim. McKeever, who treats the villa carefully, initially thinks little of "Mike" because he is in a bad mood and fears that he could damage the millionaire's villa. The super-rich is treated like a servant as "Mike" and soon wants to call the police. Trudy calls for help from her mother Mary, who is divorced from Michael and who has been spending her time in the Palm Beach beauty salons ever since . Mary also poses as a homeless person. McKeever soon realizes that Michael and Mary seem to have feelings for one another, and sets the old couple together. Michael and Mary, who had once estranged each other because of his anger at work, come together again as Michael has increasingly changed through his experiences in the villa.

But Michael's newfound generosity is put to the test when Jim and his comrades bid on vacant army barracks on the outskirts of New York, in which his company is also interested. Jim wants to turn the barracks into new shelters for families to alleviate the housing problem and offers with a sum of money that has been painstakingly amassed from hundreds of GIs in the same situation as him. Michael instructs his closest adviser, Farrow, to offer Jim a generous salary position in Bolivia to get rid of him as his daughter's admirer. On Christmas Eve, the group is discovered in O'Connor's villa by two security guards, from whom they had previously been able to hide successfully every evening. McKeever can persuade the two sensible guards not to call the police immediately, but to let them live in the house for a week until the New Year.

The situation at the mansion comes to a head when Jim and the GIs lose their bid for the army barracks at O'Connor's company. Now Jim is considering going to Bolivia instead. Mary and Trudy discover Michael’s manipulation and turn away from him, as apparently only money counts for him. Michael is ashamed. "Mike" then claims to Jim that he can arrange a meeting with O'Connor over two corners, which the latter looks skeptical at first. Jim and his business associates finally meet Mr. O'Connor, who, to their amazement (and to Jim's unconsciousness), turns out to be the Mike they know. O'Connor lets Jim and the other GIs own the barracks, provided they don't reveal his true identity to McKeever.

For the New Year everyone involved is leaving O'Connor's house and McKeever makes sure that the house is left as he found it at the beginning of winter. McKeever travels to O'Connor's Virginia estate, where he spends the summer months while he lives in New York. Michael tells Mary that the loose part of the fence in the back yard, through which McKeever used to come to the property, should be nailed up until next winter - McKeever should then come in through the front door.

Production background

In 1945 director Frank Capra bought the original story from Frederick Stephani and Herbert Clyde Lewis . Capra, who was best known for his socially critical comedies, decided instead to play the later Christmas classic Isn't life beautiful? to turn. Capra then sold the film rights to It Happened on 5th Avenue to Monogram Pictures . Monogram was notorious in Hollywood as a studio for very inexpensive films. Film producer Walter Mirisch , who started working for Monogram in the 1940s, recalled in his autobiography that Monogram was planning a change in strategy as the market for B-films became increasingly weaker. Monogram then founded Allied Artists Productions , a sub-brand of Monogram, which should turn more expensive and more elaborately produced "A-films" - the first film by Allied Artists was finally A Life Like a Millionaire . The budget of the film was nearly one million US dollars, which it exceeded the budget of previous Monogram productions by far.

The director hired Roy Del Ruth, who had gained fame as a contract director with Warner Brothers in the 1930s . Del Ruth made his debut as a producer with this film. There are no clear leading actors in the comedy, but five actors, each of whom play larger roles: Don DeFore, who is usually used as a supporting actor in larger Hollywood productions (first mentioned in the opening credits); actress Ann Harding , who was a major Hollywood star in the 1930s but whose fame had already faded; veteran comedy actors Victor Moore and Charlie Ruggles ; and Gale Storm , who had previously played the leading lady in many Monogram low-cost productions and only became a big star through television in the 1950s.

The film also features the songs It's a Wonderful Wonderful Feeling , That's What Christmas Means to Me , Speak - My Heart, and You're Everywhere , written by Harry Revel . Sometimes the songs sound off-screen and are then sung by the choir The King's Men, sometimes the songs are also integrated into the plot and are sung by the characters themselves. Gale Storm's voice was over-dubbed by another singer, although Storm was to gain some chart successes with her own voice in the 1950s.

The film premiered on April 5, 1947 in Miami , and a little later the film was also released in cinemas across the country. In Germany it was not shown in cinemas until the summer of 1950.

Awards

Frederick Stephani and Herbert Clyde Lewis, who developed the story were, for a life like a millionaire for the Oscar in the category Original Story Best nominated.

Reviews

James Agee wrote for Time that at the end of the film, not only the characters, but also the viewers of the film were satisfied. He identified the following reasons for the film's success: “1.) the presence of Victor Moore, the old master of creaky charm and pathos; 2) a plot as generally old-fashioned, in a harmless way, like a 1910 mail order amateur game; 3) the fact that now, as in 1910, a producer cannot make the mass audience unhappy by serving up a touch of comedy with a whirlwind of kitsch. "

Bosley Crowther found in the New York Times of June 11, 1947 that the basic story of a hard-hearted millionaire learning lessons about humanity was a little out of dust. However, director Roy Del Ruth and the other participants made the film with "a lot of warmth and humor", so that the story seems "almost fresh". Crowther found most of the actors competent, but Ann Harding had a "mostly sentimental role". Crowther particularly highlighted the achievements of Victor Moore as a hobo and Charlie Ruggles as a millionaire, whose characters were convincingly created by the scriptwriters and who also had a funny socially critical subtext in their roles. In the end, the film owes most to the comedic joke of Victor Moore, without which the film would have been just a "hopeful attempt".

The film service writes, A life like a millionaire is a "somewhat cumbersome, but mostly amusing comedy with a slight socially critical touch."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A life like a millionaire (film service). Retrieved January 24, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Terence Towles Canote: A Shroud of Thoughts: It Happened on Fifth Avenue. In: A Shroud of Thoughts. December 24, 2012, accessed January 24, 2020 .
  3. ^ Walter Mirisch: I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History . Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-299-22643-5 ( google.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  4. ^ David C. Tucker: Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record . McFarland, 2018, ISBN 978-1-4766-7177-2 ( google.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  5. ^ David C. Tucker: Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record . McFarland, 2018, ISBN 978-1-4766-7177-2 ( google.de [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  6. ^ Soundtrack for It Happened on Fifth Avenue at the Internet Movie Database. Retrieved January 27, 2020
  7. ↑ It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947) - IMDb. Retrieved January 24, 2020 .
  8. ^ Cinema: The New Pictures, Jun. 16, 1947 . In: Time . June 16, 1947, ISSN  0040-781X ( time.com [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  9. ↑ Bosley Crowther: THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; 'It Happened on Fifth Avenue,' With Victor Moore in Bright, Gay Mood, Opens at Rivoli - Charles Ruggles Also in Cast 'Dear Ruth' Based on Krasna's Successful Play, Is Feature at the Paramount - Holden and Coalfield in Top Roles . In: The New York Times . June 11, 1947, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed January 24, 2020]).
  10. ↑ A life like a millionaire (film service). Retrieved January 24, 2020 .