There’s an old saying: “Money can’t buy happiness.” It also can’t buy love, attention, or the companionship provided by a loving family. This message is at the heart of many films, especially from the Golden Age of Hollywood, where every film had a moral and left the audience feeling enlightened. Oftentimes, children of rich or famous families have suffered worse neglect than those living in the slums. A businessman or celebrity can so easily get caught up in his life of work or pleasure that he neglects his children, thinking that money and gifts can take the place of a nurturing, loving family life. However, no amount of cash or expensive belongings can fill the void of an absent parent.
The Story
When drunken society boy Bob Rawlston (Lew Ayres) accidentally gets Maisie Ravier (Ann Sothern) fired from her job in a carnival sideshow, he loans her his car to drive into the city. A policeman recognizes the car and arrests her. In court the next day, while he doesn’t remember the incident at first, Bob admits that Maisie’s story is probably true. The judge orders Bob to provide Maisie with employment for two months at the same rate as her previous job. Bob brings her to his family’s lavish estate to work as a maid, under the jurisdiction of kindly butler Walpole (C. Aubrey Smith).When guests mock Maisie’s unconventional behavior, Bob’s sister, gentle Abigail, or “Abby” (Maureen O’Sullivan), asks Maisie to be her personal dresser instead. Maisie soon discovers that, while the family has everything money can buy, they are very unhappy. Bob drinks chronically, and Abby has spent her life feeling friendless and plain, both due to the absence of their pleasure-seeking father, “Cap” (Paul Cavanagh). When Abby discovers that her loutish fiancé, Link Phillips (Edward Ashley), was just planning to marry her for her money, she is desolate. Cap finally shows up, but he may be too late.
The Scene
Abby’s friend Diana Webley (Joan Perry) reveals that she and Link were engaged, but Link planned to marry Abby for her money while continuing his relationship with Diana. Abby is devastated as she realizes that not only her fiancé but all her supposed friends were only interested in her wealth. When Maisie leaves her alone for a few moments, she returns to find that Abby has taken poison. When Mr. Rawlston finally arrives, the doctor tells him that she’s very low and isn’t responding to treatment. Maisie listens to Cap and Bob’s conversation as Cap coldly says he was glad that Abby was getting married, since she’s “never been terribly attractive” but is rather “plain and quiet.” They agree Bob was right to not object, even though he thought Link was “a bit of a heel.”Finally, Maisie’s had enough and proclaims, “Well, I swear to heaven, I never heard anything to beat this. ... Say, what kind of people are you, anyway?! That swell girl’s lying upstairs with her throat burned out with acid! They keep saying she doesn’t respond to treatment! Doesn’t respond, my foot! She doesn’t want to live! She got mixed up with a heel. Bob knew he was a heel, but Bob couldn’t knock his block off! No, Bob couldn’t even go barging into his sister and say, ‘I don’t like this guy!’ He didn’t know her well enough; she was only his sister. He was so busy feeling sorry for himself he didn’t have time to think about Abby! ‘People gotta work things out for themselves!’”
Its Significance
Throughout Maisie’s speech, Cap is consistently bewildered by her words. He can’t seem to understand what her accusations mean. He’s given his family everything money can buy, so he thinks he’s a success as a father. He can’t fathom why Abby would attempt suicide and keeps asking Maisie what she means.“I’m talking about a little kid that never had any love!” Maisie tells him. “Her mother’s dead! She hasn’t got a father to speak of! Oh, there’s a guy named ‘Cap’ who she sees every couple of years when everyplace else is closed! She knows he isn’t dead, ‘cause he sends her jewelry! Well, it happens she don’t like jewelry and don’t wear it, even, but you wouldn’t know about that or care, either! When Phillips scrammed, he left her with nothing. When you’re in a jam, you’ve gotta have a shoulder to cry on and a hand to grab onto! A million bucks hasn’t got a shoulder! Oh, sure, her brother was here! He was here right along! He’s drunk, mostly. ... But I guess maybe he was lonesome, the same as her. It was Link Phillips for her and the bottle for him! Something hit him about six years back when he came home on Christmas Eve with a big prize under his arm and nobody to show it to, not even Walpole.” Cap asks what she means, and Bob explains it was the scholarship he won in his junior year. Cap absentmindedly says he thinks he remembers something about that.
“You remember something!” Maisie exclaims. “Him and the second man got stiff that night! The second man sobered up! Master Robert stayed that way. Honest, I thought I’d seen my share of bad fathers and families that had nothing but grief, but compared to this outfit, they were sitting pretty. In my neighborhood, when a man beat his kids, he knew he was beating ‘em and like as not the next day he was sorry! For my money, giving ‘em the flat of your hand stacks up pretty good against giving ‘em nothing! And that’s what you’ve given Abby: nothing! And there she is upstairs, wanting to die. ‘Cause she’s got nothing.”
What Money Can’t Buy
This film illustrates how unhappy money can make people. Many families struggling with poverty find a way to survive by banding together with love and understanding. The Rawlstons, however, are about the unhappiest group you could find. While Cap gallivants around the world seeking pleasure, his two children are wasting away at home, not physically but spiritually.Bob, who was a brilliant engineering student, has been wasting his life away drinking because he came home one Christmas Eve with exciting news of a scholarship and found the house empty. He never went back to school and now spends every day drinking to celebrate Christmas Eve. Abby, meanwhile, was teased in school because she wasn’t glamorous or witty. When she finally thinks she’s found love and friends along with it, she begins blossoming, only to be crushed by the realization that it was a farce. Only Maisie’s wisdom finally brings Cap to his senses and helps them grow into a happy, loving family.
Many families today need this message. There are still many rich children who are given things instead of attention. One even sees many lower-class families where the children are given electronic devices and then ignored. Nothing can replace love and companionship with those nearest and dearest to us.
