Let's Make a Million: A B-Movie Fever Dream of Oil and Bad Investments

So, is it worth your time?

Honestly, it depends on how much you love watching a guy get bullied by his own aunts. If you’re a fan of those breezy, low-stakes studio fillers from the 30s, you’ll probably find Let's Make a Million charming enough. If you need your movies to make sense, or if you get hives from watching people make the absolute worst financial decisions possible, stay away.

Edward Everett Horton is, well, Edward Everett Horton. He plays Harrison Gentry with that familiar nervous energy, like he’s constantly expecting a slap from his own shadow. You can practically see the sweat on his brow when the town turns on him. It’s a very specific kind of anxiety that defines the whole film.

The Setup

The whole premise hinges on a veteran bonus and a granite shaft. Yes, a literal granite shaft for the aunts' father. It’s the kind of small-town quirk that feels like it belongs in a different, better movie. But here, it’s just the catalyst for Harrison losing his mind—and his savings—in Kansas City.

The pacing is… weird. One minute he’s buying stock from a couple of cartoonish crooks, and the next, the entire population of Gentry, Oklahoma, is broke. It moves at the speed of a caffeinated squirrel. You don't really get time to process the betrayal before we're onto the "blow up the safe" phase of the plot. Seriously, the safe-cracking sequence feels like it was stolen from a much faster movie.

• The aunts are genuinely terrifying in their insistence on that monument.
• The drunk sales manager is a trope I never need to see again, but he’s here in all his blurry glory.
• The oil well exploration is about as scientifically accurate as a cartoon.

There’s a weird, underlying bitterness to the townspeople that I didn't expect. They don't just boycott his shop; they act like he personally robbed their grandmothers. It gives the movie this strange, darker edge that hits harder than the comedy. It’s not quite It's a Bet in terms of screwball speed, but it has that same desperate, frantic pacing.

By the time they hit oil—which, let's face it, we all knew was coming—the whole thing feels like a fever dream. Was it good? Not really. Did I enjoy watching Harrison try to talk his way out of a lynch mob? Absolutely. It’s a messy, uneven watch, but sometimes that’s exactly what you want on a Tuesday night. 🎥