FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

MartinHafer When a movie stars Joel McCrea, you can pretty much guarantee it will be enjoyable...and so I wasn't surprised that I enjoyed this film. It's cute and enjoyable and Miriam Hopkins is quite nice as well.When the film begins, you learn that the heiress Dorothy Hunter is a bit of an enigma. No one knows what she looks like and folks about to meet her are curious what she looks like. However, what they don't realize is that this 'Dorothy Hunter' is a fake...hired by the real one (Hopkins) because she wants to retain her privacy. This has created a problem, however. How will she meet men and how will she handle it when she meets a nice guy? Well, she gets to try this out when Tony (McCrea) enters her life. She CONTINUES to pretend to be someone else and her assistant continues to pretend to be Dorothy. The problem is that Tony finds he's falling for BOTH women!This is a sweet film and the stars do a nice job...almost nice enough to give this one an 8. The script isn't easy to believe but the cast do their best to breath life into it.

Delly Miriam Hopkins, The Richest Girl in the World, wants to be loved for herself and not her money, so with Joel McCrea as guinea pig, she poses as her own secretary, while her secretary, played by Fay Wray, takes on her role. McCrea is supposed to prove his true love for Hopkins -- in secretary guise, mind you -- by choosing her over what he thinks is Wray's immense fortune, but if he does, he will have a lifetime's supply of really good scotch... What starts out as a fairy tale plot soon becomes a decimation of the very notion of secure identity, a hint that there is no such thing as individual personality. What does it mean to be loved for "yourself"? Is "yourself" a form of purity that exists only in relation to something impure, like a rich woman who could turn you into a gigolo? What if the choice is between two poor women? A scene near the end presents an inescapable labyrinth of contradictions that makes you want to tear your hair out.SPOILERS.McCrea has proposed to Fay Wray, and she has pretended to accept, much to the dismay of Miriam Hopkins who realizes that her chance for true love has flown out the window. The mood is grim as Hopkins and her servants prepare to, essentially, execute McCrea by casting him out of the paradise he thinks he's won. But that same night, McCrea is sitting on the stairs and sees Wray's REAL husband sneak into her bedroom. The next day, in a huff, he breaks off the engagement with her, suggesting that her wealth has made her a perverse tramp, only to be told by Hopkins, desperate to make herself as unattractive as possible and thereby more qualified for "true love" as opposed to mercenary considerations, that she had switched bedrooms and that she was the tramp. Instead of apologizing to Wray, as any normal man would do, McCrea grabs Hopkins and carries her bodily out of the house to the altar!Now, why and how could this happen? Why doesn't McCrea, hearing that Fay Wray was faithful, stick with her, since he thinks she's rich? The movie suggests that Hopkins's supposed promiscuity has inflamed McCrea's lust to the point where he no longer cares about money, and must have her sexually for himself, even if this means losing his potential fortune. But on top of this Freudian ploy, there's a much deeper, more haunting suggestion. McCrea, the film seems to wink at us, has figured out the trick that's been played on him. And he is then returning the favor and playing another trick by pretending to be inflamed by Hopkins, because he knows that will flatter her ego and her sense of truth about herself, even though his eye is firmly on the prize -- and I mean the one that's NOT between her legs. The final shot of the movie shows the happy couple on board of a boat, both of them still pretending not to know the other's secret, while an anonymous man, some kind of spy -- but on whose team? -- affixes a mustache.The truly sinister aspect of this movie is that everyone gets exactly what they want. Far from a slapped-on happy ending, the ending of this movie suggests that all happiness is likewise compromised, artificial, but then again, Hopkins was on the verge of spinsterhood... Isn't a fiction, any fiction, better than that?

James Hitchcock Mistaken identity has always been a classic theme of comedy; many comic characters in Shakespeare or Moliere, for example, disguise themselves as somebody else, but the device is even older, dating back at least to the days of the Greek and Roman theatre. The advantage of this device is that it enables the dramatist to make the most of the ensuing confusion for humorous purposes. The plot of 'The Richest Girl in the World' is one with which classical dramatists would have felt at home. The central character is Dorothy Hunter, the heiress to a large fortune. (The similarity of surnames suggests that the model for Dorothy may have been the Woolworths heiress Barbara Hutton). She is worried that potential suitors will love her for her money and not for herself. She therefore changes places with her attractive secretary Sylvia. If any man shows an interest in the supposed 'Sylvia' (who is really Dorothy in disguise), she suggests to him that the supposed 'Dorothy' (really Sylvia in disguise) has fallen in love with him and would welcome a proposal of marriage. The real Sylvia is happily married and has no interest in any of Dorothy's suitors; the point of this charade is that if the man shows any interest in the fake 'Dorothy' he has thereby failed the test and proved himself unworthy of the real Dorothy's hand. The film chronicles Dorothy's attempts to play this trick on her latest beau, Tony.This plot could have been the basis of an intriguing comedy, but it is not really developed well enough. This is less the fault of the actors than of the script. In this age of the turgid three-hour blockbuster it seems strange to criticise a film for being too short, but an hour and ten minutes were not sufficient to bring out all the comic possibilities of the situation, and the conclusion of the film is both rushed and muddled. (Perhaps the film was originally the B-movie in a double bill with a set, and limited, running-time, which would explain the scriptwriter's haste to get everything tidied up as soon as possible.) Dorothy's elderly guardian, Jonathan, does suggest that she may be guilty of psychological cruelty in pushing her deception of Tony so far, but the film makes no attempt to explore the deeper implications of her behaviour. Her wealth is, after all, an important part of her identity, so by posing as her own secretary she has effectively persuaded Tony to fall in love with her under false pretences. The film, however, prefers to ignore the philosophical implications of this deception. Like many comedies of the period, this is a light film, in the sense that it is lighthearted but also in the sense that it is lightweight. Even in the era when it was made, it was probably seen as no more than an amusing trifle. It has not stood the test of time well, and today comes across as trivial and faded. 5/10

FERNANDO SILVA Thanks to a fine and intelligent script by Norman Krasna and to some very good acting, this is a very entertaining and charming little film, about a "poor" rich girl (sort of Barbara Hutton type), seeking for true, "uninterested" love.Miriam Hopkins is very good and looks pretty as Miss Dorothy Hunter, "the richest girl in the world", and works very well for the first time (they did four more pictures in the following years) with Joel McCrea, who is thoroughly believable as a regular average guy, being (unknowingly) tested by this heiress, who's pretending to be a secretary.Beautiful Fay Wray, who had worked with McCrea once in 1932, in the very good chiller "The Most Dangerous Game", also at RKO, is excellent as the heroine's pal and secretary, Sylvia, who has to pass as the millionairess, and old pro Henry Stephenson is just right as Hopkin's Tutor.This nice little movie (short by to today's standards) has good pacing, real, likeable romance and some funny (not so screwballish)situations, even some pretty racy ones (due to the fact that "married" Sylvia impersonates "single" Dorothy), considering it was made in the 1930s, so I believe it must have been released before the Production Code was fully enforced in 1934.