Newly Rich (1931) User Reviews (7)

Stage mothers....yuck!

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 9 August 2016]

This is the story of two of the world's worst stage mothers--women who try to one-up each other through their children. The film starts with Maggie (Louise Fazenda) arriving back in her old home town just to rub her son's Hollywood success in the face of Bessie (Edna May Oliver). She and her little brat, 'Tiny Tim' (Jackie Searl) are insufferable and Maggie's faux sophistication is really annoying. So Maggie decides that her daughter, Daisy (Mitzi Green), is just as wonderful...perhaps more so. So the pair soon show up in Hollywood and Daisy miraculously also becomes an instant star-- though Tiny Tim and his mother do their very best to try to derail her. Through the course of the rest of the film, it's one dirty trick after another as the warring moms try to prove conclusively that their child is amazing...and the other children are just commoners! Eventually, the pair both learn that a child king is in town...and they go to all sorts of lengths to try to suck up to the King and his mommy.

This film is clearly intended as a comedy. Sadly, while it's a cute movie, it's also a sad commentary on stage mothers--both then as well as today. In other words, as you watch you suspect that the mothers' god-awful behaviors aren't really that different from real stage mothers...and you also wonder if the writer (Sinclair Lewis) was perhaps writing this as an indictment against these awful people. This is especially true of the later part of the film...which is less comedy and more about the kids rebelling against their god-awful mothers. Overall, enjoyable and clever...but also a bit depressing.

Mitzi Green and Jackie Searl Better in This Film

[view_and_review · 6/10 · 31 August 2022]

Mitzi Green and Jackie Searl star in another film together where they run amok. The two were in "Hattie and Finn" together, but this movie is a lot better.

Mitzi Green plays Daisy Tait, a country gal who helped her mother at their small gas station. Her mother, Bessie Tait (Edna May Oliver), packed up and moved to Hollywood when an old acquaintance named Maggie Tiffany (Louise Fazenda) came through. Maggie was a hoity toity big shot now that her son, Tiny Tim (Jackie Searl), was a movie star. Bessie couldn't bear the idea of Maggie being more successful than her, so she sold everything and went to Hollywood to make her daughter a bigger star.

Daisy hit it big fast and renamed Delicia Tait, but she was miserable. She couldn't play and be a regular little girl anymore because she now had an image to maintain. Truthfully, Bessie wasn't all that happy either. How could she be when she spent most of her time worrying about whether or not 'Delicia' was a bigger star than Tiny Tim.

The two mothers were deplorable. They were both phonier than a three dollar bill and their new money simply went to their heads. The kids were alright. They got into good ol' trouble when they went to London to visit the boy king, King Maximilian (Bruce Line).

The movie got significantly better when the venue shifted overseas and the focus shifted to the children. I was tired of seeing the two mothers act like children. They'd both changed their wardrobes, their voices, and their diction to put on airs. Nothing would've been better than seeing them both knocked off of their perches.

Free on rarefilmm.

Child stars grow up. Maybe their mothers will follow.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 16 April 2017]

Someone once said that children and animals are natural scene stealers, but they forgot about salty old character comics like Edna May Oliver and Marie Dressler. Over at MGM, Dressler ruled the box office, co- starring with Polly Moran in a series of social driven comedies. Flip flopping between RKO and Paramount, Oliver was nearly as popular, and here, she's paired with Louise Fazenda, playing old pals who obviously made a life of trying to outdo the other.

When Fazenda turns her young brat Jackie Searl into a movie star, Oliver decides to do the same with her bratty daughter, the precocious Mitzi Green. Before long, Green's an extra in one of Searl's films, a co-star not long after, and on her own without aging a bit not long after that. A chance encounter with a young king and his widowed mother puts the three children on the street and at the risk of kidnapping. But three little rascals have more tricks up their sleeve, thanks to the support of an our gang like group who takes them in.

Frivolous, fast moving fun, this speeds along with the right mixture of comedy, drama, thrills and pathos. It's at its best when Oliver and Fazenda are trading insults, and the kids are amusing enough without being cloying. Green surely had an edge over Little Miss Moppet, the not yet discovered Shirley Temple, in that she seemed entirely real and even resembled our gang regular Mary Anne Jackson with her no nonsense demeanor and Clara Bow wig. This one's a winner!

Marvellous Madcap Mitzi!!!

[kidboots · 10/10 · 6 August 2009]

Mitzi Green was one of the first child actors to gain prominence when movies started to talk!! She first gained attention with her startling impersonations of stars of the day (Moran and Mack, Maurice Chevalier). She was also the first child to be given a contract by Paramount, who really showcased all her talents. She was Becky Thatcher in Jackie Coogan's "Tom Sawyer" and also starred with Clara Bow (where she did an incisive impersonation of Bow singing "Rarin' to Go") in "Love Among the Millionaires". She was also great fun in "Dude Ranch" where she was part of a troupe of ham actors held over on a ranch to entertain the guests. Perhaps she is best remembered for teaming up with Jackie Searl in a couple of riotous romps - "Finn and Hattie", which depicted Americans in Europe and "Newly Rich" (the title was changed to "Forbidden Adventure" after release) about the then current fad of child stars. The story was based on a book by, of all people, Sinclair Lewis, who had written "Elmer Gantry" and the film is worth seeing just to see Edna Mae Oliver as a gas station proprietor!!!!

Bessie Tait (Edna Mae Oliver) is proprietor of the Y Wurry Garage - her little daughter Daisy (Mitzi Green) looks after the cars. When former playmate Mickey (Jackie Searl) and his mother Maggie (Louise Fazenda is excellent) stop by they realise he is now Tiny Tim Tiffany - the most popular child star in Hollywood. After the visit (and learning that Tiny Tim earns $4,000 a week) Bessie is determined that Daisy should be in pictures as well!!!

After "crashing" the movies "Delicia" captures the public's fancy and she becomes a big star with all the responsibilities and none of the pleasures. She yearns to be a regular kid and play with the neighbour- hood children. Bessie, however, is fitting into the luxurious life style very well. After rebelling against Daisy's new movie "Poor Little Poor Girl" ("why can't she ever be a King or a Queen") Bessie announces that she is taking Daisy to Europe to meet the Crown Prince Max (Bruce Line). Who should they meet over there but Maggie and Mickey - there is now a contest to see who meets the Crown Prince first. Daisy does, but mistakes him for a bellboy - the little prince who is tired of duty is more than willing for an adventure.

This is just an excellent film and definitely proves that movie brats have more fun. Jackie Searl is a standout as the snotty little "Tiny Tim" Tiffany - ""I'm Tiny Tim Tiffany and my public adores me!!!".

The "forbidden adventure" happens when the little King decides to abdicate and runs away with Daisy and Mickey. After a big fight with a street gang they are invited to join up and with Daisy's $10 they all have a wonderful day. By nightime there is suspense - a pair of street villains recognise Tiny Tim, when they see a billboard offering $25,000 reward (Daisy left a note so all the parents are frantic and hastily rethinking their values) - determine to seize him. Things look pretty grim but Max escapes and summons the street gang (with a special call) and there is a big fight to bring the "baddies" to justice.

This is a hugely recommended film in the same spirit as "Emil and the Detectives" and for Edna Mae Oliver alone deserves 10 out of 10.

Mitzi Green Fights Like a Boy!

[tashman · 26 February 2002]

Director Norman Taurog was developing quite a specialty directing kids during the early talkie era, and lucky for us he kept coming back to it. NEWLY RICH (aka FORBIDDEN ADVENTURE, based on Sinclair Lewis' LET'S PLAY KING) is one of the more obscure examples, and deserves our attention. The first half resembles a poor man's Marie Dressler-Polly Moran social "competition" comedy, and the second half develops into an entertaining children's adventure tale. That the tale involves two boys and a girl sharing equal footing in all aspects of the adventure, ie, no break-down by preconceived gender expectations, should yank it out of obscurity and place it front and center among Pre-Code gems. Appreciating the picture requires a tolerance for the two great character actresses portraying competing stage mothers, Edna May Oliver and Louise Fazenda, both famous and notorious for their distinctive styles. The unusual chemistry results in a sort of burlesque variation of the Bette Davis-Miriam Hopkins duos, with Oliver the indomitable sage and Fazenda the mercurial clod. If you can find amusement with them, you will be rewarded with the performances of the kids involved -- the wonderfully lazy brat Jackie Searle, and the ebullient delivery style of savvy Mitzi Green. Green herself can move you to tears despite a penchant for a too-knowing, too precious delivery (a delivery which often enabled her to steal scenes from adult performers). Despite an improbable turn of events leading to the adventure portion, these kids manage to take command of the picture, assisted tremendously by Bruce Line charmingly portraying young King Max, who escapes with his new pals and finds 'forbidden adventure!' Definitely a product of more kid-friendly times, the film is never really going to frighten anyone beyond a sheltered fourth-grader, and yet it is the stunning acknowledgment of Green's character holding her own with the tough boys (perhaps tougher than most of them - she was a Vaudeville veteran, after all) which makes it so fabulous and worthy of watching today.

Crappy Pre-code Movie

[GManfred · 19 August 2010]

Gosh, sometimes it's hard to figure out where to begin. I like Edna May Oliver and Louise Fazenda and could appreciate Mitzi Green, of whom I haven't seen a great deal. A previous reviewer mentioned that this is a pre-code movie, but that has no bearing on this picture. And I wasn't thinking of the gender angle, of Mitzi Green acting like a tomboy, as another reviewer mentioned.

I was thinking mainly of the asinine script that these actors had to work with, and the improbable and improvisational nature of the plot, a pail of swill that the screenwriters responsible threw at us. If it's comedy, it's extremely forced and not very funny. If it's anything else, those responsible should have been fired on the spot - except that it was none other than Sinclair Lewis and Joseph Mankiewicz!!

What was the target audience for this mess? Anyone over the age of 10 would be as uninterested as I was. All others must have been looking for a place to get out of the rain (my excuse was that I was a captive audience at a film festival). Edna and Louise did their best but I still am giving it a three, mainly due to their efforts.

Time to get the title confusion sorted out.

[horn-5 · 11 May 2017]

This film was released in the USA on June 6, 1931 as "Forbidden Adventure", hence the source of the on-site lobby cards under using that title. Paramount, for whatever reason, called back the "Forbidden Adventure" prints and printed material from their film exchanges (some of which had already been sent to theatres and escaped the call-back) and sent out changed-title prints on June 20, 1932 as "Newly Rich."