Sirk's first color feature treats his familiar theme of money as an arbiter of human values in the humorous story of a small-town family whose life is turned upside down when multi-millionaire Charles Coburn deposits $100,000 in their cookie jar. Ma moves them into a Xanadu-like estate, from which she legislates her daughter (Piper Laurie)'s love life--beginning with the ouster of her soda-jerk boyfriend, Rock Hudson, in favor of a wealthier specimen. Andrew Sarris has noted, "Sirk elevated Universal's most conventional projects to a plateau of stylistic accomplishment, a plateau which he inhabited alone. His style did not merely transcend his genres: it released their mythological essence. Even in this sit-com of a middleclass family...Sirk manages to celebrate the simple virtues without smirking at them." Another important reason to see Has Anyone Seen My Gal? is to catch James Dean in one of his first screen parts--a brief but delicious appearance as "the ice cream lover" at the soda fountain.