Brewster's Millions (1935 film)

Brewster's Millions
Swedish poster
Directed by	Thornton Freeland
Produced by	Herbert Wilcox
Written by	Arthur Wimperis Donovan Pedelty (scenario) Clifford Grey Wolfgang Wilhelm Douglas Furber
Based on	novel by George Barr McCutcheon play by Winchell Smith and Byron Ongley
Starring	Jack Buchanan Lili Damita
Music by	Ray Noble Douglas Furber (lyrics) Geraldo Harry Perritt Marr Mackie (uncredited)
Cinematography	Barney McGill Henry Harris (uncredited)
Edited by	David Lean (uncredited) Merrill G. White (uncredited)
Production company	Herbert Wilcox Productions (for) British & Dominions Film Corporation
Distributed by	United Artists (UK)
Release date	January 1935 (UK)
Running time	80 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Brewster's Millions is a 1935 British musical comedy film directed by Thornton Freeland and starring Jack Buchanan, Lili Damita and Nancy O'Neil. It is based on the novel Brewster's Millions with the action relocated from the United States to Britain.

The New York Times wrote, "take an inventive young man who is required to spend a quarter of a million dollars in six months, and you possess the germ of a successful farce. If this sounds a trifle uncertain, it is because the new British screen edition of "Brewster's Millions" leaves you with just that rueful impression. Instead of telling the story in the swift and eventful terms of screen comedy, the present gentlemen have used it simply as the libretto for a big, eye-filling musical photoplay in the combustible Hollywood style. There are songs, dances, girls and more girls, and a great fiesta scene featuring a mass dance called la caranga, which seems to be a compound of all the recent variations on the rumba. Although the English ladies of the ensemble are lovely, the tunes quite acceptable and Mr. Jack Buchanan an able and versatile performer, the film never comes off as musical comedy. Those song-and-dance interludes during which Mr. Buchanan abandons his money-spending campaign are useful chiefly to remind the audience that "Brewster's Millions" is still a sufficiently sturdy comedy to stand on its own feet. When the piece is being played straight, it is always bright and amusing in a slightly desperate British style...Mr. Buchanan is an engagingly frantic Brewster and he is assisted pleasantly enough by Lili Damita as the malicious chorus girl who wants to snare him and by Nancy O'Neil as his conservative sweetheart. But "Brewster's Millions" is more hilarious in theory than in practice in this British rendition"; while TV Guide noted, "the witty, energetic Buchanan has a field day with this craftily scripted comedy. The over-produced musical numbers and the elaborate Italian fiesta scenes are delights, as is every scene of this classic example of British wit."