It's Not a Lie...if You Believed It in 1937

Beg, Borrow or Steal, a rather obscure comedy from 1937, aired on the Turner Classic Movies channel this afternoon. Its description in the Comcast grid:

“As a gesture, an American in Paris invites his daughter’s wedding party to his nonexistent château—and they all accept.”

This plot sounds remarkably similar to Seinfeld Episode 171, “The Wizard,” in which George Costanza is caught in a lie to his would-have-been in-laws, the Rosses, about not being able to attend a charity event on behalf of his deceased fiancé because he is closing a lease on a house in the Hamptons. When the Rosses don’t call him on his lie, an infuriated George decides it’s time to get nuts and takes it up a notch by inviting the Rosses to his new summer home. Hilarity ensues when the Rosses call his bluff, and George spends two painfully awkward hours driving them to the very end of Long Island, all the while describing in exquisite detail his nonexistent house, including two solariums and a pair of horses, Snoopy and Prickly Pete.

I didn’t get to watch the film, but reading Comcast’s description of Beg, Borrow or Steal, it’s not hard to picture American expatriate Ingraham Steward (Frank Morgan) squirming to keep his Costanza-esque lie going as the wedding guests inquire about “his” château. A lavish, pre-war, French home likely built in the 19th century most certainly had two solariums—as did George’s purported lease. And horses for sure—I’m betting Snupây and Épineux Pierre. Let’s face it: lies and deceit were all the rage throughout Europe in the 1930s...

It seems as though MGM got nuts and took it up a notch sixty years before George did...

(Beg, Borrow or Steal image copyright MGM; Seinfeld image copyright NBC.)