User Reviews

If you watch this movie and then watch the first episode of the much later, and very beloved, British TV series "The Darling Buds of May" starring David Jason and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and which made her a star in the UK, you will be struck with a feeling of having seen this before. That wonderful series is about the Larkin family, as is this movie, taken from stories by British author H.E. Bates. I knew it as soon as I heard the name 'Larkin'. For those whose reviews center on the IRS and whether or not the movie is realistic versus American tax law, be aware it was originally written in relation to British law and may just suffer from poor translation. The author's works were also used for movies such as David Lean's "Summertime", 1955, with Katherine Hepburn; and "The Purple Plain", 1954, with Gregory Peck. At any rate this is still an enjoyable movie, and as it turns out, was Douglas' last movie.

I have always liked this comedy as one of the few ever seriously trying to deal with the U.S. Government's yearly demand for taxes. Ever read a tax code?: it is quite a trial to follow it's multiple clauses that our congressmen and senators push in to help their financial backers and various interest groups. Despite claims that it is fair, the tax code has always laid the lion share of the burden on the middle and working classes rather than the rich and influential. Most of the various special clauses are meant for their use - go through the average 1040 or 1040A form and look at the variety of different investment and business ventures all of which have a different set of rules. Most people will never have any use for these.

The story here is that a wealthy landowner (Philip Ober) uses his influence to tip off the IRS that his neighbors (Paul Douglas and Una Merkle) have not payed taxes in 20 years. The Baltimore office of the IRS is under Fred Clarke, and he is snapping to attention for Ober with his influence. He sends Tony Randall to check out the situation.

Randall finds that Douglas, Merkle, and their three girls and two boys are pretty decent people, who rarely have need for cash (they get along on their farm produce and barter with their neighbors). But Randall, trained in the clear (to the IRS) lines of the tax code tries to pin down the family to fundamentals. But gradually Douglas notes that Reynolds is fond of Randall, and he keeps sidetracking Randall from his chore, eventually getting him drunk. He also makes it difficult for Randall to leave by having the motor of his car removed "for repairs" by his two sons.

The plot follows the growing attraction and frictions between urban, vaguely ambitious Randall, and countryside, life loving Reynolds. They make a cute couple actually. Eventually, after Ober complains, Randall is sent back in disgrace and Clarke (a tougher cookie) gets down to brass tacks. And comes up with a very large tax bill, that will possibly ruin Douglas's family.

The film does not end there - it does end happily, but it does remind us that the power to tax is the power to destroy, and that the Government does, all too frequently, go in for destruction. A chance in a million reversal saves the family, but it is so rare that we know it is just a dramatic trick. More realistic is how Clarke's boss, (Charles Lane) cuts to the essence regarding Ober's "help" by suggesting that next year his taxes will be looked at more carefully. After that Ober is rather green.

Young mother Debbie Reynolds with 2 kids under 5 still looks plenty energetic to play the daughter of a farm couple in trouble with the IRS. While Tony Randall was already 39. 12 years older than Reynolds, the age difference does not look that great here.

When you add veteran actor Paul Douglas, and character actors Fred Clark and Charles Lane to a good supporting cast you get a fun comedy. Randall is the evil IRS agent auditing the farm family because they have not filed taxes in 20 years and owe the IRS big time. The plot while a little thin holds enough to make it a decent picture.

The happy ending is here, as the couple winds up 14 million ahead when all is set and done and gives it back to the Government. Somehow it works out quite well and Reynolds looks great.

I was thirteen when this film came out and back then I spent Saturdays at the matinees. My dad had managed somehow to get free yearly passes to the local theater and I took advantage. My mom and dad maybe saw three or four pictures (movies) a year. But I loved movies. Now some almost 60 years later, I'm watching this on TCM. Without a doubt film making has changed over the decades and this is simple B film escapist fare. Like many films then, casting directors didn't seem to do too well in getting ages correct. Debbie Reynolds was too young and far too attractive to be interested in Tony Randall but who cares. Did Steve McQueen look like a sixteen year old in The Blob?

The plot is silly. Reynold's (Marietta Larkin) father Sidney Larkin (Paul Douglas) has upset his wealthy gentleman "farmer" neighbor Wendell Burnshaw (Philip Ober) and he has decided he has had it with his less than desirable neighbor and decides to sic the IRS on Sidney Larkin via the persons of Oliver Kelsey (Fred Clark) and Lorenzo Charlton (Tony Randall). What follows are a series of misunderstandings in which Charlton mistaken believes he may have done something with Marietta which is leading to a shotgun marriage. Of course this is the 50's so we all know nothing happened or will.

The plot to have Pop Larkin lose his farm is doomed to fail from the start. Early on Pop mentions his family doesn't deal in money since the government took a bunch of horses off his great grandfather back in 1863 and never paid for them. You know the bleaker the picture looks for Pop that that failure of government to pay its bill will be worth millions in interest. So, a good audience sits back and watches some great character actors do their job and enjoy a young Reynolds in her early days before "Tammy and the Bachelor, " "How the West was Won," "and The Unsinkable Molly Brown."

A knockabout "comedy" with some too-very-much slapsticky antics from Tony Randall, which are so overdone that he outstays his initial welcome. Fred Clark and Philip Ober have some nice moments and the climax is reasonably entertaining, even if predictable once Debbie shows Tony that receipt which he tosses so casually aside (some bird- dog, he is!). Paul Douglas makes the mildly risqué jokes, Una Merkel stooges and Debbie Reynolds has the title song and a few bars of Cole Porter's "Under My Skin". Aside from some unflattering close-ups, Debbie looks grand. But George Marshall's direction is strictly routine even on just a low yoke-yoke level – as are other credits which waste Cinemascope on what is basically a minor, flat-footed domestic monkeyshine, a sort of very moderate "A" re-visit to a Ma and Pa Kettle "B". It's hard to believe this script was actually based on an H.E. Bates novel!