Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Good concept, poorly executed.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It is hard to imagine German exile Douglas Sirk (Hans Detlef Sierck) directing anything less likely than this, for it is even more extraordinarily pure Americana than the other Rock Hudson films he directed later. The film is based on a story written by Eleanor H. Porter, author of 'Polyanna'. The first thing to say about this film is that the cinematographer Clifford Stine ruined it from the start. Most of the interior scenes are so brightly lit by 'brutes' that they seem to be taking place in the Sahara Desert at noon. Any chance that a nuance might survive such savage and searing light was nil. The amount of sweat sponged off the actors' faces by the makeup lady between takes must have been enough to fill a swimming pool. The film is notable for an early appearance in a tiny cameo role by James Dean as a teenager sitting at the soda counter in a small town drug store. Even in his few fleeting moments, Dean manages to be electric, which is astonishing and most impressive. Although this film purports to be a cozy tale of small town life, it is based upon a rather rotten premise. It concerns a rich elderly curmudgeon, brilliantly played by Charles Coburn, who decides to stay as an incognito boarder in the house of a family to which he might or might not leave a fortune, depending on what he decides that he thinks of them. They are the daughter and grandchildren of the girl he wanted to marry but who dumped him, so that he lived his life as an embittered bachelor. The film was immensely popular when it was released. The story touches the central nerve of the USA, the land where Money is worshipped on bended knee by 300 million devotees, all of whom dream every night of the supposed delights of untold riches, especially unearned riches which come from an unexpected source (hence the popularity of Las Vegas and Atlantic City). Money is the only measure of value accepted by the majority of Americans. If you have a rare book or a beautiful painting any American visitor admiring it will give you what is meant to be the highest form of praise: 'That must be worth a lot!' It is only the monetary value that matters, the contents of the book or the beauty of the painting being incidental and essentially meaningless. Hence a fairy tale of a rich old man who might leave you a fortune is the ultimate dream, the True American Dream! The situation is made worse by the fact that so many people in America are desperately poor, far more now than in 1952 of course, for at that time there was national prosperity. Therefore they all still dream of Charles Coburn, even if they have never heard of him. The cute little girl in the film is played by Gigi Perreau, aged ten at the time. It is difficult for people today to realize how popular she was as a child actress. She first appeared on screen at the age of two, and she was only three when she played the illegitimate daughter of a Belgian woman who had been raped by a German soldier in THE MASTER RACE (1944, see my review). All during the 1950s she was a favourite of all the little boys throughout America, and made their tiny hearts throb in incomprehensible ways. She was not that cute, not that pretty, not that charming, but nevertheless she was a tearaway success. Her fame was eclipsed starting in 1959 with the appearance of the young Hayley Mills in the film TIGER BAY (1959). Hayley was a law unto herself: irresistible in every conceivable way, she could be sweeter than Margaret O'Brien (and that's saying something!), cheekier and cuter than Shirley Temple had ever been, more poignant that Natalie Wood, more everything than everybody, in fact. And so Gigi Perreau was suddenly forgotten, poor thing. But she had had a good run for her money and was four years older, and besides was getting long in the tooth at the great age of 18. She had had a run of 16 years and now it was somebody else's turn. So from these comments you may gather that in retrospect I do not believe she added much to the film, though at the time everybody was entranced by her. That is what happens when you are up against Hayley Mills in hindsight! Rock Hudson plays a young 'soda jerk' romantic lead, but doesn't have many interesting lines, and it is an unrewarding part, so he just looks dull and square-jawed and slightly ill at ease. Piper Laurie as the ingénue whom Hudson wants to marry was thought in those days by everybody to be lively, pert, and quite a cutie. In retrospect, she seems dreadfully dull too. (And just to make things worse, her makeup and costumes are bad.) In fact, everybody in the film is rather dull other than Charles Coburn and James Dean. And the film is a dreadful disappointment. But the crucial fact to remember is that it was not a dreadful disappointment back then. It served its audience of Middle America perfectly according to the undemanding standards of 1952. And for those prepared to watch a bit of nostalgia wearing their sunglasses (because of the harsh lighting), this rather tepid film might warm a cockle or two.

Although Piper Laurie and Rock Hudson are the stars of Has Anybody Seen My Gal, this film belongs to Charles Coburn. He does one of those patented foxy grandpa roles that he honed to perfection in such films as The Devil And Miss Jones and The More The Merrier.Coburn plays one of the richest men in the world, Rockefeller type rich and the film opens in the Rockefeller town of Tarrytown where Coburn is one of their neighbors. He's making out a last will and testament and since he's got no family of any kind, he's decided to leave his money to the Blaidells who are the descendants of the woman he once courted, but who married someone else.But of course the Blaisdells do bear checking out so Coburn gets out of his sickbed where he's enjoying all attention he's been getting and visits them incognito. The family consists of husband and wife Larry Gates and Lynn Bari and children Piper Laurie, Gigi Perreau, and William Reynolds. Bari is the daughter of his lost love, but she's got a lot of social climbing pretensions, Coburn sees more of his former sweetheart in her granddaughter Piper Laurie. Piper's going out kind of with the soda jerk in her father's pharmacy Rock Hudson. But Skip Homeier is hanging around and he's the son of the wealthiest people in their town and that's a match Lynn Bari would prefer.Coburn gives them a test run so to speak. First he finagles his way into boarding with them under an assumed name. Then like John Beresford Tipton he bequeaths on them anonymously a check for $100,000.00. Of course it all goes to Bari's head and she drags the rest of the family somewhat reluctantly into a new lifestyle.Has Anybody Seen My Gal is set in the Roaring Twenties and the music score is of that period, popular tunes played in the background and occasionally done by the cast. Coburn has some incredibly good scenes here with Gigi Perreau, he saves Piper Laurie from being arrested in a speakeasy raid, and does a mean Charleston once he learns. Bari comes off second best in the cast as a woman who learns that even comparative wealth can bring with it all kinds of problems. Her family the Blaisdells learns in a more humorous way, the lesson George Bailey learned that no man is a failure who has friends. We can't all be millionaires.Four years away from when they shared Oscar nominations for Giant, Rock Hudson and James Dean were in the same film. Dean had some small bit parts in a few films and television work before hitting it big. This is one of those bits and you can plainly recognize him as one of the Roaring Twenties kids at the drugstore soda fountain.Has Anybody Seen My Gal did good things for stars Rock Hudson and Piper Laurie, but this film belongs to Charles Coburn and the marvelously droll and funny performance he gave.

The follow-up to "no room for the groom" ,"has anybody seen my gal?" displays many similarities with its predecessor .It's "money cannot buy happiness" all over again;the mother who dreams of a rich marriage for a daughter was also present in "no room" .She was more over possessive,she was less kind,but the mother is here as selfish and as snob as Piper Laurie's .The scenes when she plays the nouveaux riches,as French people say , predate the dramatic sequence of Sarah's cocktail party in "All that Heaven allows" .Rock Hudson's part of a waiter is not far from the gardener full of Joie de Vivre in the 1955 work.Generally,people like this movie and dismiss "no room for the groom" ; however ,both movies display Capra's influence and both movies are proof positive that "all I (should) desire"-to mention another Sirk work- is a simple life ."No room" is closer to farce;beside,it's in black and white .If you want to see James Dean,you've got to pay a lot of attention:he only appears a few seconds .

This wonderful film has often been described as a wonderful piece of Americana and so it is.It is beautifully realized thanks to a wonderful cast, terrific pacing and a story line that we can repeat over and over: money isn't everything.Charles Coburn gives another wonderful performance. This versatile actor, who moved from drama to comedy with ease, is fantastic as the elderly gentleman who visits the family of the woman who turned him down years before when he proposed to her. While the woman herself is now deceased, Coburn finds her family in the ideal American town of the 1920s.Lynn Bari is wonderful as the status seeking mother married to a soda store owner-Larry Gates. Then there is Gigi Perreau who is as precocious as ever.A young and beautiful Piper Laurie appears as their elder daughter who becomes engaged to Rock Hudson, a soda jerk at Gates' store.When Coburn goes to live with family, posing as a border, all hell breaks loose when he gives them anonymously $100,000. The money changes all of them drastically.There are wonderfully comic turns everywhere and there is a short but memorable Charleston done by Laurie and Hudson. Even, Coburn figures in the dancing.You will be upset when the movie ends because Coburn, on the verge of being found out, announces to the family that he may never see them again as he leaves. Nevertheless, this is a feel good movie; it conveys the American ideal and values so well and with great comedy along the way.