Down to Earth on AllMovie

This sequel to the highly successful Will Rogers vehicles They Had to See Paris and So This is London details the further adventures of the nouveau riche Peters family of Claremore, Oklahoma. Oil millionaire Pike Peters (Will Rogers) remains his old "down to earth" self, but his family -- wife Idy (Irene Rich) and son Ross (Matty Kemp) -- insist upon taking on airs. Idy's improvidence reaches hitherto unscaled heights when she insists upon rebuilding the family's French chateau in their hometown of Claremore. Hoping to bring his family to its senses, Pike uses a recent bank failure as an excuse to pretend that he's gone broke. Idy and Ross realize the error of their ways, and things return to normal again -- for the time being, anyway. Some of Down to Earth doesn't make much sense without prior knowledge of They Had to See Paris; in particular, the scenes between Pike Peters and Grand Duke Michael (Theodore Lodi), a Russian aristocrat now reduced to working as a doorman, are far funnier when placed in context with the earlier film. Still, any Will Rogers film is worth watching, if only because Rogers is in it.