Zeus

Going Highbrow (1935)

• Director
  • Robert Florey
• Writers
  • Edward Kaufman(screen play)
  • Sy Bartlett(screen play)
  • Ralph Spence(based on the story "Social Pirates" by)
• Stars
  • Guy Kibbee
  • Zasu Pitts
  • Edward Everett Horton

  Consigned to the Warner Bros. "B" unit in the mid-1930s, director Robert Florey must have had a high old time trying to inject some visual dynamics into such unprepossessing projects as Going Highbrow. Guy Kibbee and ZaSu Pitts star as Mr. and Mrs. Matt Upshaw, a nouveau riche couple clearly inspired by Bringing Up Father's Jiggs and Maggie. While Matt prefers to live his life as simply as he'd done before striking it rich, Mrs. Upshaw is bound and determined to crash high society. To appease his wife, Matt hires dimwitted lunch-counter waitress Annie (Judy Canova) to pose as the Upshaw's daughter, thereby qualifying for the upcoming debutante ball. As things turn out, Annie reveals her true identity at the worst possible time, while the Upshaws are clipped for $50,000 by obsequious social "arranger" Augie (Edward Everett Horton). Though Going Highbrow represented Judy Canova's first major role at Warner Bros., the studio was unimpressed and dropped her option; in later years, Canova admitted that the picture was "not so hot."