AllMovie

Wise Girl is a medium-level screwball comedy with faintly serious undertones. Miriam Hopkins plays an heiress whose millions can't help her gain custody of her two nieces from their stubborn widowed father (Ray Milland), an impoverished Greenwich Village artist. Hoping to win the widower over without revealing her identity, the heiress disguises herself as a penniless "Bohemian" and infiltrates the Village's artists' colony. When he finds out he's been duped, the man stubbornly insists upon remaining in jail rather than hand over custody of his daughters to the headstrong heiress (yes, that's perennial Laurel & Hardy foil James Finlayson as the friendly jailer). It all turns out for the best when hero and heroine realize they're in love with each other.