I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

As usual, Ann Sothern is the excite-able "Maisie", stranded again, SOMEWHERE. They show joshua trees, so she must have been somewhere in the mojave desert. Although that was probably just a backlot with a backdrop. When her car breaks down, she bumps into Bill (Lee Bowman) and Fred ( Slim Summerville), who get her car going again, but success is short lived. Now Maisie bumps into the Davis family, scratching for gold. Virginia Weidler is the daughter... you may recognize her from "The Women", where she was over-the-top, saccharin sweet and emotional. Here, she's just a normal kid. This one has a pretty thin plot... they had a couple ideas, and put lots of talking in between. Takes a while to get going, but does get better in the second half. Just my opinion. Could be wrong. It DOES have the moral lesson, as Maisie films usually do. See what you think. It's on Turner Classics now and then. Writer C.W. Collison had come up with "Maisie", but then he croaked young in 1941. Collison's death didn't stop them from making movies about Maisie... they were still making them in 1960! Collison had also written the Oscar nominated "Mogambo", with Clark Gable. This Maisie chapter directed by several different folks, apparently due to illness.

Let me preface this review by saying that I have watched ALL Of the other nine "Maisie" movies. There are reasons this is the least often seen film in this series. This is not a comedy. This is a serious film on the plight of migrant farm workers which pretends to be a comedy so the general public will watch it. As a movie on "social comment' is is not a bad movie. As a comedy featuring the Maisie character it is dreadful, just dreadfully bad. The Maisie character is one of the most beloved characters in B films of the 1940s. Here she is totally and completely out of place -- a bubbly showgirl wannabe plonked down in the middle of the Arizona desert. This is also one of the most depressing movies I have ever seen from this period. The entire movie moves from one disturbing theme to the next, with little to ease the tone. There are some especially disturbing scenes. There are scenes of children starving. families who are forced to sleep in tents without adequate water to drink. .ANd n and on Never has "real life' be so present in a 1940s movie.I love Ann Sothern. I love the Maisie series. I do not care for this movie.

Molested by a tumbleweed as the coyotes howl, stranded Maisie faces being stuck in the middle of nowhere as she heads towards a singing job. Unfortunately, she never makes it, her car unfixable and the thought of a nearby gold rush tempting her to stay. Grizzled Lee Bowman gives her a hard time and you know romance may blossom because well, fighting men and women are really lovers in denial, at least in these old MGM comedies, especially when sassy Ann Sothern is involved. As usual, Sothern's Maisie takes over in solving everybody's problems in record time, moving on just like Dorothy after saving Oz from those wicked witches.Sothern plays the role with much empathy as well as humor, showing she can hold her own with Bowman, yet with just a minimal shake of her head shows her sympathy for struggling mother Mary Nash whose daughter Virginia Wiedler she had earlier befriended. It's nice to see Nash in a sympathetic role, having been notoriously cruel to Shirley Temple in "Heidi". That old hound dog, Slim Summerville, plays Biwman's crabby companion, creating laughs simply by being miserable. It's a combination of comedy and drama, the funny scenes classic, and the dramatic elements as forced as those in MGM's other series, that one concerning the Hardy family. Still, there's no beating Maisie, pick in hand, taking a crack at mother earth

This is the third of eleven Maisie movies MGM made with Ann Sothern. Maisie's character seems a lot like Dr. Kimbell in "The Fugitive" because each of the films finds Maisie moving on to yet another locale. In "Gold Rush Maisie", this dancer has been hired for a job in some dive in the middle of the desert. However, hr car breaks down on the way and she's forced to stay with a couple misanthropes who live in the desert. Lee Bowman and Slim Summerville play Bill and Fred--two angry guys who hate everyone and treat Maisie like a leper for bothering them. She eventually does leave and assumes she'll never be back to see these grumpy guys. However, later she meets up with a homeless family living in their car and traveling to some supposed gold strike--hoping to try their luck. Naturally, this takes them back to the property owned by the grumpuses--Bill and Fred. Can Maisie's winning personality win over these grouches or is there some deep dark secret and that's why they don't want them on the land. Well, the latter turns out not to be the case--they just hate everyone and Maisie MIGHT be able to do something about this and help the starving families at the same time.This is an interesting movie because it's one of the few from the era that acknowledges that there IS a Depression! In so many Hollywood films of the time, the characters are rich or at least middle class and quite unaffected by the hard economic times. This is good. However, I felt angry because I assumed there was some secret for why Fred and Bill were so nasty. But, instead, it was a bit like a sappy version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" where Maisie melts their hearts and save the day. Yick. It's fair but sappy entertainment and no more.