Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

ScoobyMint Disappointment for a huge fan!

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

wsutton_49 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.

treeline1 The corn grows high and the cheese is stinky in this silly comedy about the joys of poverty and the dangers of money. A large family (think: Ma and Pa Kettle) lives on a squalid farm next to a snooty landowner who wants them out, so he gets an IRS man (Tony Randall) to investigate the family's back taxes. When the agent falls for the homespun charms of the oldest daughter (Debbie Reynolds), a happy ending is guaranteed.Talk about Hee Haw Gone Wild...the improbable pairing of ever-bouncy and man-hungry Reynolds with über-nerd Randall is way off-base. He's good as always but she's annoying and they have no chemistry. Paul Douglas, as her father, doesn't look or act like the yokel he's supposed to be. His never-ending platitudes about being happy without money get old fast and plot holes in the script abound.I can see this being a hit in 1959, with less sophisticated and demanding audiences, but for me it's just a tedious story that resorts to slapstick and animal mating jokes for humor.

theowinthrop 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.

bkoganbing The Mating Game's plot is based entirely on the premise that in the mid 20th century, a family could live on the barter system and hence not come up on anyone's radar including the IRS. It was forced then, but in today's computer world with the increasing use of credit cards, it would be impossible to make.Yet that is what we are to believe about the Larkin clan led by Paul Douglas and Una Merkel and their five kids, oldest being Debbie Reynolds who dusts off her Tammy character for this film. A neighbor, Philip Ober, who is a little tired of the Larkin's Tobacco Road ways, has finally ratted them out to the IRS and Tony Randall's been sent to investigate the situation.The rest of the film is about the Larkin income tax situation and how everything is ultimately resolved in the end. The best scenes in the movie involve Tony Randall getting smashed on some of the Larkin's concocted schnapps.Unfortunately in order to make this work it would have to have been set maybe at the turn of the 20th century. Had they done so, the situations might have been believable. For instance, the Larkins have a television. I'd love to know just what they would have offered in barter every month for the electric bill. Or how did they manage to pay the phone bill.