Six years later, Sam Fuller used this same "small-town Midwesterner inheriting a New York newspaper" plot device--albeit quite seriously--for Power of the Press (1943).
Before his untimely death in 1944, this film's director George B. Seitz was one of the studio's most reliable moneymaking filmmakers during M-G-M's most successful era, the late 30s and early 40s, in part because he directed more than a dozen titles in one of their most profitable franchises, the always popular Andy Hardy movies.
Martha's 65-cent cafeteria dinner would equate to about $13.40 in 2022.
In 1937 the U.S. federal inheritance tax was 70% of everything over $40,000. This would be on top of any New York state inheritance or estate taxes.
At one point, Mrs. Atherton mentions "The Perils of Pauline." The original 1914 version was written by George Seitz, who directed this film.