Watch She's Got Everything For Free

The Age of Commercialism

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Ann Sothern stars in "She's Got Everything," a 1937 film also starring Gene Raymond (her frequent costar in those days), Helen Broderick, Victor Moore (a "horse broker," not a bookie), Billy Gilbert, and an uncredited but cheery Jack Carson.Sothern plays Carol Rogers, who thinks she's from a wealthy family. When her father dies, she finds out that all he's left her is debt. In fact, while she sleeps upstairs, his creditors are taking his furniture and anything else they can get their hands on. When she awakens, the only thing left in her room is her bed.Daddy's biggest creditor Waldo the bookie, has high hopes for Carol marrying a wealthy man from South America who is crazy about her. However, he's a miner, and Carol hates miners.Carol decides it's time she stood on her own two feet and went out and worked. Waldo has just the job, as secretary to a coffee mogul, Fuller Partridge (Raymond). When she arrives at his office, she finds out part of her job is as a coffee taster. She hates coffee. It makes her sick.Anything with Ann Sothern is worth seeing. Add the wonderful Helen Broderick as her aunt, and you should have a winner. Unfortunately both actresses are better than their material.The second part of this film has a lot of music in it, including a nice rendition of "It's Sleepy Time in Hawaii" by Sothern.Gene Raymond was an attractive man but not right for light comedy. Ann Sothern looks beautiful and is delightful, but overall the script is as thin as paper.

Ann Sothern plays an heiress who returns from a European trip to discover that her wealthy father has died and left her with enormous debts. She's determined to get a job to pay them off, and through a series of somewhat contrived circumstances winds up working as a secretary for coffee magnate Gene Raymond. The script is predictable-- you KNOW they're going to wind up together after a series of misunderstandings separates them--and Raymond, as another reviewer has noted, is as stiff as a board, but the supporting cast, especially Billy Gilbert and Victor Moore, is good. It's Sothern's show, however, and she's more than up to it. She's funny, perky, sexy and has great comic timing, which Raymond utterly lacks (she tries to connect with him, but despite her best efforts there's no chemistry there whatsoever). All in all, it's an inconsequential comedy that owes whatever success it may have had to the extraordinary talents of Ann Sothern. It's worth a watch for that, but not much else.

But what SHE (Ann Sothern) does have is a very funny supporting cast (Victor Moore and Helen Broderick), a dependable leading man (Gene Raymond) and surprisingly, a decent script. For a "B" film, that's the equivalent of having George Cukor as your director and Oscar Considertion for Best Bottom of a Double Bill. Utilizing standing sets from "Bringing Up Baby", "Vivacious Lady" and "Carefree", "She's Got Everything" has an "A" look on a "B" budget. The plot, concerning a broke heiress determined to work for a living, is nothing new, but it has a perky, yet un-annoying heroine, handsome leading man, and the benefit of funny people Helen Broderick and Victor Moore in one of several films they did together. I've seen some really rotten "B" films that claim to be comedies, but this one can actually live up to its claim. It all starts with the removal of Sothern's mansion's belongings (while she sleeps), unaware that her father was broke and that the creditors are up in arms about what the estate owes them. Three of the creditors scheme with Moore to find Sothern a wealthy husband so they can be paid, and Moore arranges for the coffee-hating Sothern to become coffee king Raymond's secretary. Of course, something more than java is brewing, and before long, they are off on a holiday at an expensive resort where the creditors spy on Moore to make sure that romance is blooming as he promised. Sothern gets to sing, rather pleasantly, if slightly shrill, but her formerly rich heroine is quite likable. As in their two films opposite Astaire and Rogers, Moore and Broderick are an adorable twosome, and would get their own two "B" films to star in the very same year. I still can't get the sound of Broderick repeating "Fuller Dear!" out of my head in the scene where she is in a trance.There's plenty of amusing moments, including one of the male creditors being identified as a female dress designer, frustrated Billy Gilbert as one of the other creditors brutalizing the English language, and several scenes with a magician who tricks Moore out of a cocktail, then after putting Broderick in a trance, tries hysterically to wake her up. Sure, there's not a shred of reality to be found, but in the golden age of screwball comedy, all late depression era audiences wanted was a chance to escape into the glitz and glamor of a world even wealthy Americans dreamt of.

This film has a fine supporting cast,with the likes of Helen Broderick,Victore Moore,and Billy Gilbert.Unfortunately it does not have a good script.Furthermore there is very little chemistry between the two leads.Ann Sothern is as bubbly as ever whilst Gene Raymond performs his usual impression of an oak wood.He is stiff and bland and quite frankly a total waste of time when it comes to comedy.Furthermore this film has a number of ideas which might have seemed fine on paper but on the screen leave one feeling quite numb.So i would be bound to say that this is a waste of the considerable talent involved.So quite frankly you would be better off giving this a miss.