From the moment Aline MacMahon and Guy Kibbee played their first comic flirtation scene in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), audiences were in love. Something about the pairing of the sleek, exotic looking MacMahon, who could crack wise with the best of them, and the short, pudgy Kibbee, often the butt of jokes because his characters' foolishness, made them a perfect screen pair. Gold Diggers was actually their third film together, but the first in which they shared any major amount of screen time. Warner Bros. would re-team them five more times, mostly in low-budget domestic comedies that pit the bumbling Kibbee against the all-too-capable MacMahon. For this 1934 adaptation of a hit play, Kibbee is surprisingly bellicose as a self-made man, a plumbing tycoon who won't let anyone, including wife MacMahon and their three children, that he made it on his own and has no time for the rich or well-educated. When his cantankerous ways threaten daughter Patricia Ellis's engagement to a wealthy young lawyer, MacMahon turns the tables on her husband to the delight of their many fans. Featured in the cast are veteran players like Henry O'Neil and Marjorie Gateson, and tragic juvenile Junior Durkin, who would die in a car crash a year later.

By Frank Miller