My Man Godfrey (1936)

The Plot.In the depths of the Depression, a party game brings dizzy socialite Irene Bullock to the city dump where she meets Godfrey, a derelict, and ends by hiring him as family butler. He finds the Bullocks to be the epitome of idle rich, and nutty as the proverbial fruitcake. I watched this as part of a 40s festival even tho it was made in the 30s. In a convoluted way the plot is oddly relevant today,, even though it's also highly unbelievable.Here we have homeless men with expensive had speaking perfect English and even knowing French!. But it's a screwball comedy, so concentrate on suspension of disbelief.It's very well written and directed with a face pace.

As the title suggests, this is a love story between a middle-aged aloof homeless man(Godfrey) living in a city dump and a carefree, impulsive, spoiled society girl(Irene Bullock): seemingly a most unlikely pairing, given their radically differing economic situations, ages, and personalities. But, it's also an examination of the relationship between the dispossessed unemployed and the wealthy, especially during a time of widespread unemployment. The Bullocks represent how the wealthy should not spend their time and money, while Godfrey, toward the end of the story, exemplifies. how this advantage might be usefully employed in helping the dispossessed get on their feet.It's clear that Irene was attracted to Godfrey from the time she met him in the dump during a scavenger hunt game. Although, on the surface, Godfrey maintained an aloof posture toward Irene's romantic overtures, Irene had the intuition that Godfrey had probably fallen into bad luck, and was not a hopeless derelict. Eventually , we discover why Godfrey landed in a dump and why he resisted Irene's throwing herself at him, indeed, the romantic overtures of any woman.It's of interest that Carol Lombard, who played Irene, and William Powell, who played Godfrey, had been married and divorced. Nonetheless, Powell insisted that Carol should play Irene.Cornilia: Irene's aloof sister, exhibits an antagonistic attitude toward Godfrey. It appears this is due to a combination of motivations:(1) assuming that homeless men must be hopeless derelicts, thieves, and possible murderers (2)a personal grudge against Godfrey for the way he treated her and spoke to her at the dump(3)jealousy that Irene had rescued a seemingly worthy man from a life of homelessness. In any case, her attitude soften toward the end, and she cried over his leaving the Bullock household. It's interesting that her aloof personality seemed much more suited to Godfrey's similar aloof personality than the impish, impulsive, Irene. But, sometimes opposites attract, in this case, each taking a big chance that the other would prove unsuitable as a mate in the long run.

It seems superfluous to add yet another five-star review to those already published, but "My Man Godfrey" is a movie that grows on you. I didn't like it all that much when I first viewed it. In fact, I felt that the movie was showing its age and did not shine as brightly as on its first release. "In fact," I wrote, "the pacing is often rather slow, especially in Lombard and Powell's later scenes, most of them shot by producer/director La Cava in sustained, boring takes. In fact, Gail Patrick survives better than Lombard. True, the movie opens very promisingly and the acting throughout is very capable, although it's worth noting that comedians Palette and Mowbray are used as straight men to feed witty comebacks to Powell. The sets and costumes are delightful, the photography superb!" As the copyright has expired, the movie is now available on many DVDs. For some odd reason, the cheapest ones are often superior in quality to the more expensive!

Within the first five minutes of watching this film, I knew that it would go down in history as one of my very favorite movies. The classification of "Screwball Comedy" accurately describes nearly every aspect of this film. The cast of characters in this film did an incredibly good job in the roles that they were cast. Although I did not always understand the references that they made, I would expect nothing less as I did not grow up in the time period of which the movie is set. I would imagine that the set and the props are very realistic for the time period although I did not live during that time and therefore wouldn't know for sure that the inside of a house looked like that in the 1930's. The characters also had a very good on air personality and developed very realistic relationships with their co-stars which only added to the hilariousness of the film and made for a very pleasant viewing experience.