The Unsinkable Molly Brown
Director: Charles Walters
Year Released: 1964
Rating: 1.0
Margaret Brown (Debbie Reynolds), growing up poor in Leadville, Colorado, dreams of being rich, so she marries J.J. Brown (Harve Presnell) who comes into a ton of money (there's gold in them thar hills!), he builds her a house, takes her to Europe to meet royalty and become 'cultured,' she has a fight with the husband (he wants to stay in The Centennial State, she wants to live overseas), she comes back to America on the RMS Titanic ... and survives that tragedy. The corniness of the production is enough to make one's eyes curl straight back into the back of the head as Brown and her husband Golly Gee and Skip to Their Lou through the too-wild-to-be-true storyline (although it did happen), with the 'message' being that no matter how wealthy you are, you're still a product of your upbringing and you can buy sophisticated 'friends' but you never came from the same environment that they did ... which just so happens to be the point of the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies. Bless Ms. Reynolds for making an effort to keep this saccharine hooey at least semi-tolerable to sit through, but her down-home Pa (Ed Begley) has it right: why socialize when you can hang around the house with a full jug?
