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Carole Lombard and William Powell flirt, fight and buttel in My Man Godfrey |
Director: Gregory La Cava
Cast: William Powell (Godfrey), Carole Lombard (Irene
Bullock), Alice Brady (Angelica Bullock), Gail Patrick (Cornelia Bullock), Jean
Dixon (Molly), Eugene Pallette (Alexander Bullock), Alan Mowbray (Tommy Gray),
Mischa Auer (Carlo), Pat Flaherty (Mike)
My Man Godfrey is
one of the most beloved of all screwball comedies. It’s also the only film in
history to be nominated in every acting category and the directing and writing categories at the Oscars and still
not get nominated for Best Picture (proving comedy was devalued even then).
Today it still carries a heck of a comedic wallop, splicing this in with an ever
more acute and profound social commentary. It’s a gem of Golden Era Hollywood.
With New York in the midst of the Great Depression, affluent
socialites the Bullock sisters – snob Cornelia (Gail Patrick) and ditzy,
scatter-brained Irene (Carole Lombard) – are in hunt for a “forgotten man” so
they can claim victory in their scavenger hunt. In a rubbish dump – turned home
for the unemployed – they find the well-spoken Godfrey (William Powell).
Godfrey is having none of the condescension of Cornelia, but finds the honesty
and kindness of Irene more touching agrees to help her win the prize –
whereupon he promptly admonishes the upper-class crowd at the Waldorf for their
lack of concern for the working man. Ashamed, Irene offers him the job of
Bullock family butler, which Godfrey accepts. But as he navigates the eccentric
family, is Godfrey also hiding secrets of his own, secrets that suggest he is
much more than he seems?
My Man Godfrey is
a very funny film, centre-piecing the fast-paced comedic delivery of the era,
the script never going more than a minute without a killer line or brilliant
piece of comedic business. It’s helped as well by the casting, with every actor
being perfectly selected for their roles, and each of them bringing their
absolute A-game. Not least the partnership of Powell and Lombard – divorced in
real life but still close – who spark off each other wonderfully and keep the
will-they-won’t-they question beautifully balanced throughout the whole film.
La Cava’s film – wonderfully directed with imagination and
visual chutzpah – matches this up with an extremely neat, but not too preachy,
line in social commentary. The self-obsessions and petty concerns of the
Bullock family are frequently contrasted with the poverty and struggles of the
working man, while the families’ lack of concern for the struggles of the
vagrants and down-and-outs only a taxi ride away from their mansion home is
striking. Godfrey frequently points up this lack of empathy in this ‘classless’
country (which is in fact defined by class), stressing he found more decency
and kindness at the rubbish dump than he did in the palaces of the mighty.
Sure Godfrey’s secret may well be that he is from loaded
stock himself – but has given it all up in shame and self-disgust – but that
only makes him all the better an observer of the whims of the rich treading on
the poor. In fact My Man Godfrey
could well be the film for today. The scavenger hunt dinner – a brilliantly
directed, frenetic scene that looks years ahead of its time in its technical
accomplishment – really captures this. The guests haw and shout over each
other, clutching with an ironic glee their examples of poverty (from everyday
objects to a goat to, of course. the ‘forgotten’ man, who has as much value as
the goat to them). We get more of it at the posh clubs and cocktail parties the
Bullock frequent, the guests (while not cruel) being as blasé and oblivious of
their fortune as they are of the suffering in the rest of the city.
But that makes this sound like a civics lessons, whereas the
film is first-and-foremost a comedy. It has a terrific performance from William
Powell as Godfrey. Powell makes the part a mix of Jeeves and Wooster: the
intelligence and calm of Jeeves with the warmth and tendency for scrapes of
Wooster. Powell is brilliant at balancing the wry observer quality of Godfrey,
while never sacrificing his warmer, generous soul. And also brilliantly
suggests his wonderful judgement of situations and characters, without ever
making him smug or a know-it-all. It’s a quite exquisite performance of
unflappility covering emotional depth.
Lombard sparks off him very well as Irene, allowed to
frequently head further over the top as Powell grounds Godfrey in normality
(Lombard was a famously electric performer, and the outtakes reel for the film
frequently show her screwing up her fast-paced dialogue with copious
swear-words). Today the more ditzy Irene sometimes comes across as a more
tiresome, less believable character – she is so obviously a narrative
construction rather than someone who could be real that it becomes harder to
connect with her (or to imagine Godfrey might find her attractive). But
Lombard’s energy and drive carries the film through and the film highlights her
electric qualities in several show-stopping scenes.
The entire Bullock household is in fact spot in, with
gorgeous performances. Alice Brady (Oscar-nominated) is the quintessential
disapproving society mother, archly self-obsessed. Eugene Pallette is
wonderfully funny as the exasperated father of the household, barely able to
understand either his family or his investments. Gail Patrick is a delight as
Irene’s manipulative sister, proud and selfish. Mischa Auer (Oscar nominated
surely off the bag of his extraordinary gorilla impersonation) is very funny as
Angelica’s “protégé”, a preening, talent-free musician and freeloader who
spends most of his scenes eating. Jean Dixon is smart and sassy as the maid
Molly. There isn’t a bum note in this ensemble.
La Cava directs all this with great skill, framing the
action with a beautiful sense of composition, pace and style. You know you are
in save hands with the opening scene that show the credits appearing like neon
bill boards during a slow, continuous tracking shot along the New York
riverside. With dialogue that glides beautifully from humour to pathos, and delivery that creates comic archetypes that feel like real people, it’s a film that gets nearly everything right – which is why it’s
still a classic today.
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