Heirate mich, Gauner! (1964) Online

I never knew of this film with Ray Milland but came across it on youtube. It is a cute film with a nostalgic pairing of Ray Milland and Ginger Rogers. It centers around a hidden treasure that is hidden deep below a statue of St. Joseph in a small village. Milland is a thief and he is after that and then of course after Rogers who plays a madam in a house of ill repute. They get together and when he finds a prostitute begging the St. Joseph to speak to her and help her with her pregnancy, he speaks and tells her everything will be okay. She goes to the priest to tell him there has been a miracle. Many funny scenes come when every person in the town with a secret ask St. Joseph to forgive them. In the end the statue crumbles revealing a solid gold stake, truly showing a miracle. There are many stars in the movie, which certainly helps it move along. It is just fun to watch Milland and Rogers together again.

In this , the basic plot, finding a treasure , is overshadowed by the Miracle, seemingly seen by Pia (Barbara Eden). The result of the miracle is the conversion of many town characters who have been stealing from the town. One of these is the mayor, played by Michael Ansara, Barbara Eden's real life husband. The superb acting by Barbara Eden is a high point in this movie. Also fine acting by Michael Ansara, Ginger Rogers, and Ray Milland.

QUICK, LET'S GET MARRIED looks like the cheapest film Ginger Rogers had appeared in since, oh, THE THIRTEENTH GUEST or something like that. It was barely shown in theaters, and then only years after it was made (my guess is that Elliot Gould's later success got it whatever play it did have). A partial reason is that the film was confiscated in Jamaica (where it was shot) before it could be properly edited. Perhaps it might have been more coherent if completed under better circumstances, who knows? As things stand, it was an unmitigated disaster. Rogers said that she would never have made it if it hadn't been produced by her husband (William Marshall, the last of her marriages) and that it cost her the friendships of director William Dieterle, writer Allan Scott, and co- star Ray Milland (perhaps they were never paid?). At least, perhaps not knowing any better, Elliott Gould seems to have relatively fond memories of his first film role. So far as I know, no one else has ever talked about the experience.

It's probably my lousy taste, but I kinda like it.

QUICK, LET'S GET MARRIED is an odd combination of miracle play and Italian sex farce. A remarkably talented group of people were involved in making it, though for the most part they were near the ends of their careers or towards the beginnings. William Dieterle was a fine director (HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME among many other fine films), but he was called out of retirement to do this, and I can't say that I recall any other comedies in his oeuvre. Allan Scott, veteran writer of many a better Ginger Rogers film, authored the script. The cast includes superb veterans like Rogers, Milland and Cecil Kellaway mixed in with talented newcomers like Gould, Barbara Eden and Michael Ansara. Jamaica is a fresh setting for a movie in 1964, though little is made of it. This really should have been a decent flick.

The plot: A professional thief (Milland) buys a map for a hidden treasure in a town in Italy called Toleno. On something of a lark, he goes there to find the treasure. Besides gold and jewels, which he finds buried beneath a stature of St. Joseph, he is attracted to the madame of the town brothel (Ginger Rogers). One of her prostitutes (Barbara Eden) is pregnant and despairingly prays at the statue, threatening suicide. Hearing her from beneath St. Joseph, Milland speaks to her and his voice is taken as the miraculous voice of St. Joseph himself.

Writer Scott's point seems to be that the faith of the people change their lives for the better even if this is really no miracle at all. Bumbling mayor Ansara repents of his corruption (a very nice performance in an unusual role for Michael), the father of the child forgoes his wandering ways to be with Pia (Eden), even the thief and the madame seem to fall genuinely in love. At the end there is the suggestion of a true miracle by way of a convenient earthquake and a deaf-mute (Gould) speaking. Even our guilty couple, Milland and Rogers, are miraculously deprived of their ill-gotten gains, and they take their just desserts with admirably high spirits.

This is almost entirely played for comedy, and Scott gives some clever lines to Milland and Rogers, Ansara and his buddy the pawnbroker, and to tone-deaf bishop Kellaway. Barbara Eden is stuck playing it straight, but she does well in doing so. Some characterizations turn on a dime. Rogers' Madame Rinaldi is very mean towards Eden's Pia originally, but positively maternal towards her afterwards. Much the same can be said of the father of Pia's baby, rejecting her through the first half of the movie and then accepting her for no apparent reason. The film's post- production problems are likely responsible.

All in all, if you can forgive the inherent shoddiness of B-movies, you might enjoy QUICK, LET'S GET MARRIED. At least I did.

In a beleaguered Spanish village, an unwed prostitute in the family way believes her prayers to an aged statue of St. Joseph were answered after she hears his voice and awakens from a faint in possession of gold coins. The crooked mayor also hears the voice, promising to redeem himself to the townspeople he has cheated, but the miracle is a hoax, set off by a thief who was digging under the statue for buried treasure. Troubled independent production went through two directors before it was completed, and then was shelved until 1971, when it resurfaced in the US with a new title. Allan Scott's dim script is the real casualty, wherein the thief actually feels guilty he duped the prostitute into believing her prayers were heard, risking her spiritual belief and the entire town's animosity by revealing the truth. A solid cast almost rescues it: Ginger Rogers is fine (if overly colorful) as the local Madame (real-life husband William Marshall produced), while old friend Ray Milland is wily and almost charming as the thief she's in-cahoots with. Barbara Eden and her husband, Michael Ansara are also good, and Cecil Kellaway (still doing his kindly old priest bit) is always nice to have around. Slow-starting comedy improves as it goes along, though the big finale isn't quite grand enough, while the concluding tag shucks the whole thing off with a smile and a wave. *1/2 from ****

Known in Ginger Rogers career as the movie that was barely even released, it had slight big screen showings in both 1964 and 1971, and basically remains forgotten. There is a reason for that; the movie is simply just terrible. Ginger, who always played wisecracking tough girls who had a hidden heart of gold, must have thought she could modernize her image with this script that has her playing a modern madam but it seems like the girls in her house are simply there more for conversation than for what residents in a den of ill-repute usually do. That is with one exception; the presence of a young, red-headed Barbara Eden, announcing she is pregnant without the benefit of a husband, and is immediately kicked out of Rogers home. If you ever wanted to see Ginger truly be nasty, look no further. Yes, she had cat fights and several of her movies and also could toss off wisecracks with the best of them, but here, her character is truly vile towards Eden in in of the opening scenes, showing no heart whatsoever.

If Ginger snaps here, the angelic Eden literally becomes like Saint Bernadette of Lourdes. What plot is a present concerns Eden who prays to a statue in a local Catholic Church which is overheard by Ginger's partner in crime, Ray Milland, who answers her as if he were God responding to her prayer. This makes everybody believe that a miracle has taken place, leading to a fraud of the greatest measure. What was Milland doing inside the church behind the statue when this occurred? Digging for a hidden treasure, that's what! Ginger, his partner in crime, is present when another alleged Miracle occurs, and she gets one of the few moderately decent moments in the film. Elliott Gould has a minor role as a mute, and veteran character actor Cecil Kellaway has a small part as a cardinal, but in spite of such potential with this outstanding cast, this is totally defeated by an unbelievable script that is not at all funny and simply mostly just tacky.

Produced by a production company created by Rogers and her then husband William Marshall, it floundered for release for years and eventually it obviously became a sort of embarrassment to Ginger who isn't well photographed at all. She would recapture some of her glamour by appearing on Broadway and touring in "Hello, Dolly!", but appears a bit jowly in close-ups. Those who saw Ray Milland the year before this creeped out in "Love Story" must have thought that he had plastic surgery after that. I caught this years ago on late night T.V. in L.A. and couldn't stomach it then. Do yourself a favor. Stick with Ginger dancing with Fred, or at least her with Milland in "The Major and the Minor" which has stood the rest of time. The only test this took (and failed) was my patience.