Product Details

• Actors: Constance Bennett, Brian Aherne, Alan Mowbray, Billie Burke, Patsy Kelly
• Format: Black & White, NTSC, Full Screen
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Studio: Nostalgia Home Video
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000K2JU36
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,067 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Hilarious farce concerns a dizzy socialite with a penchant for hiring ex-cons and bums to help tend to her family's needs. After an unshaven writer shows up at her door asking to use the phone, she mistakenly believes him to be a tramp and gives him a job working as a servant. Quickly, her new employee uses his life skills to get the household in order as he falls for her eldest daughter. Constance Bennett, Brian Aherne, Ann Dvorak, Billie Burke star. 90 min. Standard; Soundtrack: English.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Yes, but your mother was smarter than mine.", March 11, 2007

By 

Bobby Underwood "starlighthotel" (Manly NSW, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Merrily We Live (DVD)

This delightful and zany film from MGM is one of the great forgotten examples of screwball comedy. An amazing cast and fine direction from Norman Z. McLeod make this little-known film a real gem.

Constance Bennett may have shortened her own career by being difficult to work with but shows here why her swanky sophistication, touched with sweetness, made her such a huge and sought after star during the 1930's. Young Bonita Granville, always a favorite, also gets to shine as her younger sister.

Bille Burke gives another in a long string of delightful performances as their daffy mom who has a penchant for taking in tramps in an effort to reform them. Brian Aherne as her latest project and Alan Mowbray as their put-upon butler would steal any other film but everyone else is so good here that their topflight antics blend right in. Add a great song from Phil Charig and Arthur Quenzer and you have a screwball masterpiece.

Brian Aherne is novelist Wade Rawlins. When the car he rented gives out and then goes over the side of a mountain he stumbles upon the Kilborne mansion only to use the phone but is soon drafted by Emily Kilborne (Billie Burke) to be her latest project, much to the consternation of the entire family, especially the butler, Grosvener (Alan Mowbray). An exasperated Rawlins (Aherne) soon gives up trying to use the phone and plays along.

Soon all the sevants love him and young Marion (Bonita Granville), who sells info to the rest of the family for two bits a pop, has a huge crush. But it may be real love for swanky Geraldine, who slowly warms to the charms of the tramp who cleans up nice. Bennett is sweet and fabulous here and looks as good as she plays in outfits by Irene. Her scene pretending to lose her key so Rawlins will help her through the window will have you smiling.

When a senator's young daughter named Minerva (Ann Dvorak) takes a shine to the Kilborne's new "guest" Geraldine gets jealous and plays domestic by making fudge with pickles in an attempt to seem more desirable. There is a hilarious scene as Rawlins trades crazy gestures with a smitten Granville standing behind Geraldine, who just looks confused and somewhat amused.

Screwball also had charm, and this one has it in droves. Only in a screwball comedy would someone who's just had a pail of water splashed in their face jump into the arms of the perpetrator and respond with: "I knew you loved me!" This is a wonderful film that is light and delightful and a splendid time capsule of this genre of film during the 1930's. They don't make films like this anymore and they don't build 'em like Bennett anymore either. Film fans don't want to miss this one!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally out on DVD!, April 19, 2007

By 

J. Laplagne "Dodger" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Merrily We Live (DVD)

I won't write how great this movie is because someone here already did that. I first saw this movie back in 1987 on the Nostalia Channel. Yes, a long gone channel. But I taped it off the TV the next time it was on and since that day have never been able to find even the name of the movie on movie lists or in the lists of movies the stars appeared in. Praise that is over! I absolutely LOVE this movie and you will too!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hilarious forgotten comedy about a forgotten man..., May 1, 2008

By 

H. Bala "Me Too Can Read" (Just moved to posh Marina Del Rey, CA - where if you drop a quarter, why, you just keep on walking) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Merrily We Live (DVD)

Kilbourne: "Tramp?"
Rawlins: "Yes."
Kilbourne: "You stolen anything yet?"
Rawlins: "Not yet. Only got here this morning."

Rarely shown and not much known, 1938's MERRILY WE LIVE will for sure slap you upside the funny bone. That is, if you ever get a chance to watch it. This screwball comedy reunites producer Hal Roach with Constance Bennett, Billie Burke, and director Norman Z. McLeod, who all worked on the very successful Topper the year before. MERRILY WE LIVE was pooh-poohed mightily by the critics and the snooty ones for too closely echoing My Man Godfrey's premise. But, yes, while leading man Brian Aherne is just about a younger carbon copy of William Powell and Constance Bennett a more grounded version of Carole Lombard, MERRILY WE LIVE, I feel, is ultimately redeemed by its witty script and insanely wacky comedy.

This is a wealthy but pretty kooky family, the Kilbournes, and none more loopy than Mrs. Kilbourne. In her own fashion, Mrs. Kilbourne (Billie Burke) is on a mission to reform society's lawless and seedy downtrodden. As such, she tends to take on ex-cons and vagabonds as family servants. It's an uphill struggle, though, as exemplified by her last hire, who's already scampered with the family silver (and the butler's shoes and socks). You'd think she'd have learned her lesson, but, not too long after, at the doorstep comes unkempt - but charming - writer Wade Rawlins (Brian Aherne), who'd just had his car break down (then it rolled down a hill). Merely wanting to use the telephone, the bemused Rawlins is mistaken for a tramp by Mrs. Kilbourne and is promptly hired on as the new driver. Rawlins decides to stick around and it's not too long before this sensible "forgotten man" (what bums used to be called during the Depression) begins to make an impact on the household...and especially on the gorgeous but icy Geraldine, or 'Jerry', Kilbourne (Constance Bennett).

MERRILY WE LIVE may be a hidden gem, but it's one of those films which is simply non-stop funny. Two of the most hilarious bits: Rawlins tries to assist a just arrived and very inebriated Mr. Kilbourne, who staggers up one stairway only to reel his way down the other stairway (and backwards!). Then there's that oh-so-manic, gut-busting kitchen sequence near the film's end (trust me, you will crack up!).

Constance Bennett and Brian Aherne are fabulous as the romantic leads. Both ooze sophistication and wit and are very likable, with Aherne nearly rivaling Powell in the wry and urbane department. Billie Burke as the fluttery mother was good enough to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress, although she didn't win. S'okay, though, as she would be immortalized the next year as Glinda the Good in The Wizard of Oz (Two-Disc Special Edition). There's a sighting of Bonita Granville as Jerry's high-spirited younger sister, who owns two Great Danes with awesome names, "Get Off the Rug" and "You Too". Bonita would go on to star as teen detective Nancy Drew in four pictures. Meanwhile, Alan Mowbray makes me smile as the butler who constantly threatens to quit at the smallest slight.

I love, friggin' love, old films. And, by old films, I don't mean stuff that came out in the 1980s. I'm so grateful Turner Classic Movies is still going strong on cable (TCM is where I caught this film). MERRILY WE LIVE is an appealing, if not so celebrated, representative of the wonderful screwball comedy genre. And more people should see it. You should see it.

And, if you enjoyed this story premise, you might want to check out City Lights (2 Disc Special Edition) (as well as a busload of Chaplin's other flicks), It Happened on 5th Avenue, Sullivan's Travels - Criterion Collection, and, of course, My Man Godfrey. Heck, I guess you could even throw in Trading Places (Special Collector's Edition) into this mix.