Good concept, poorly executed.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

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

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Scatterbrained society matron (Billie Burke) hires a man named Rawlins (Brian Aherne) to work as her family's chauffeur. She thinks he's a hobo and she has a habit of bringing home hobos and trying to rehabilitate them. Enjoyable knock-off of My Man Godfrey also stars Constance Bennett, who was originally supposed to star in that film before the part was given to Carole Lombard. Alan Mowbray appeared in both movies. Obnoxiously loud Patsy Kelly makes it hard to take her scenes but the rest of the cast is good enough you can overlook her. Brian Aherne, Billie Burke, and Ann Dvorak are all good. Bonita Granville is cute as a button and probably my favorite part of the movie. Peppy title song sounds like the theme from a '60s sitcom. Not as good as Godfrey but lots of fun anyway.

"My Man Godfrey", of which this is a virtual remake, was tainted slightly by a strain of silliness that didn't grow out of the plot but seemed inserted later, as an afterthought. "Merrily We Live" is almost all like an afterthought.I don't mean to be too polyphenolic about it. It's an amusing diversion. But it's a whole lot more amusing if you haven't seen "My Man Godfrey" yet.In the earlier film, there was an inherent absurdity in the contrast between William Powell's immaculate, articulate, and super-polite butler and the lunatic family he served. Brian Aherne's newly hired chauffeur isn't a Boston-bred Harvard graduate. He's more of an Everyman. The family springs its nonsense on him with éclat and he responds with aplomb. Instead of being willingly bound in the role of chauffeur, he wanders around the estate at will, making remarks about the diseases of roses and such. The gags aren't particularly funny. One longs for lines like Carole Lombard's, "If others can have children, why can't OTHERS have children?" Let me put it this way. Watch this before you watch "My Man Godfrey," because this compares poorly.

OMG! this is one of the cutest, funniest of the 30's screwball comedies. Wish I could find a DVD of it. Constance Bennett is so good, as is Allen Mowbray playing the much put-upon butler. There's the long suffering father who loves them all, but oh my does he have to put up with a lot! One of my favorite lines - when the little sister points to the family's two Great Dane dogs who have the run of the house - 'This is "Hey You"and this is "Get off the Couch"!' Billie Burke does, as usual, a good job of playing the ditsy mother. Everyone in the cast is good. All in all, a funny and feel good movie! The film lives up to its title. They all, in spite of the chaos,live very merrily. And it has happy ending. Of course! All in all, a silly and enjoyable feel good movie.

As has been noted before (often), this is a brilliant screwball comedy and yet somehow "a lost movie." How do such things happen? Fate, I suppose - which is no answer at all.Do, however,seek out this film when you can find it. I saw it on Turner Classic Movies (God Bless Them), and I will make it my business to gather a crowd when viewing its next showing. Considering how across-the-board dazzling the film is, I hate to single out anyone, but Clarence Kolb, who plays the always exasperated "pater familias," and whom we have all seen in dozens of movies, here displays a mastery of physical comedy that is singularly impressive and downright hilarious.