Film Review--My Man Godfrey

My Man Godfrey
directed by Gregory La Cava
written by Morrie Ryskind, Eric Hatch
starring William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, Eugene Pallette, Jean Dixon, Mischa Auer, Pat Flaherty, Alan Mowbray, Robert Light

A down-on-his-luck man finds him thrust into high society in this ribald, rolicking comedy of errors.

William Powell plays the titular Godfrey, a man who has been successful in life but who stumbled through a rough patch and ended up living at the city dump. Sisters Irene (Lombard) and Cornelia Bullock (Patrick) are involved in a silly little game that reflects on their class’s overarching boredom more than anything else. They are collecting strange objects and racing to a massive hotel with hundreds of others to be recognized for their find. On this particular sojourn the ladies are scouting for a “forgotten man”. Cornelia approaches Godfrey first but can’t convince him to go with her. Irene tries her hand and succeeds. After taking her toy to the hotel she offers him a job as the family’s butler and he accepts.

Godfrey certainly appears to be a fairly decent butler. He catches little snippets of conversation and completes all the deeds a butler is supposed to do. The only problem is that Irene has fallen in love with him and won’t let him alone. She pesters him all the time and nearly drives the poor man out of his mind. Fortunately he’s got the ice cold Cornelia to keep him on his toes and at least take his mind off of Irene and the fact that he’s working for a family of pampered, soft nit-wits. It is true that there is tremendous chemistry between Powell and Patrick but the film doesn’t do a whole lot to exploit it. For her part Cornelia attempts to break Godfrey by planting a string of pearls beneath his bed. He’s one step ahead of her and removes the pearls to a safe location before he can be caught with them.

The family is indeed wholly privileged and exceedingly lazy save the father, a man named Alexander (Pallette), who seems to be working his company into the ground. Still, they all live in a lavish home that is exquisitely filmed; the slight decadence of the Bullocks is brought into clear focus as they lie about all day doing something close to nothing. The film criticizes this lifestyle and in fact might be attempting to hold it in contempt. This kind of luxury is held up as debilitating. There is a character named Carlo (Auer) who seems to do nothing but sit around eating whatever is available and occasionally playing somber Russian music on the piano. The girls do nothing whatsoever, get sent to Europe after Irene’s engagement falls apart, and have plenty of time to waste on this or that triviality. The poor just don’t have the time or the means to waste it on collecting “forgotten men”. The whole concept is absurd to the poor who at least retain their dignity no matter how far they fall. Indeed, it’s the poor who are ultimately celebrated in this film. The affluent are shown to be a bunch of trivial nincompoops whose level of ennui reaches such an epic scale that they must play psychologically torturous games with men who gather and live at the dump.

Irene is a chatty gal who cries at every turn. She’s hysterical most of the time and all of her anguish is due to her love for Godfrey whom she has taken on as something of a protégée and for whom she feels responsible for. But it is much more than that and the wee lass is utterly dumbstruck with affection for Godfrey and she can hardly stand not being near him. He’s cool of course immersed as he is with his job and maintaining the proper order about the house amidst a group of people who are very much like children who need to be cared for at all times. The mother, Angelica (Brady), is a flighty bird who remains ensconced in her perfectly codified little bubble without a clue about how the outside world actually operates. She flits about trying to maintain her youth, her looks, and every other superficial means she employs to attract attention. She does tell Godfrey that he’s the only butler they have ever had who understands women and this certainly appears to be true after a fashion. Nevertheless, he’s a bit stymied by the sheer force of Irene’s attention and does what he can to stave her off.

Cornelia in her frigid way demands that she too be noticed by Godfrey despite her disdainful treatment of him. Her pride is hurt and it stems from the moment upon first apprehending Godfrey when he knocked her back into an ash pile. She harbors resentment just like any trivial thing who can’t bear to be made a fool of in public however odious she considers it to be. She also can’t stand to see her kid sister fawn over a man who is utterly indifferent to her misplaced charms. Godfrey might have had is way with her, strong arming her with a an intense kiss that would have sent her reeling. It’s precisely what she needs and perhaps no other type of man will do. She is a woman who requires of her lovers a certain brutality that melts her icy exterior and makes of her something akin to a sexual slave. She wants to be kept, contained, and broken down by a man as long as he provides her with all of the material comforts she has become accustomed to.

Irene revels in hysterics specifically to be noticed by Godfrey. She whines and caterwauls at every opportunity like a baby positioning itself for a bottle or a rattle. She’s basically a little girl who desperately needs to be spanked on the bottom very hard and for a considerable length of time. It’s the only way she could ever regain her composure and start behaving like a woman who isn’t so needy and definably weak. Unfortunately, Godfrey is not capable of meting out such necessary punishment so she’ll probably go on just like she is pitching fits whenever she can’t get her way.

The performances in this film are uniformly excellent. Carol Lombard captures all of the sniveling and mock-serious bawling of a character who hilariously acts like a spoilt brat for the duration of the film. William Powell exudes class and style in this film. He looks comfortable in both his filthy rags and his sharp tuxedo. Godfrey is a man who knows what he’s about and can be comfortable in any situation. He’s very controlled and wickedly charming as he fills a void while mentally making plans to do something impossibly grand and humanitarian. Gail Patrick as mentioned is deliciously cold as Cornelia. Her character is exquisitely devious in her efforts to defame Godfrey but her sordid efforts go for nought as he’s just a bit smarter than she is. Plus she’s got those smouldering eyes which rachet up her considerable sex appeal to a frightening level. Mischa Auer certainly sombers things up a bit with his maudlin piano tunes. Carlo is the typical freeloader who manages to keep up his position for quite a while. Auer is extremely funny playing a man who epitomizes this lazy, unencumbered lifestyle that corrodes the soul.

Overall, this film captures all of the flaky machinations of the nouveau riche. Godfrey literally climbs out of the city dump to demonstrate a true and visible quality of a man of integrity. He’s the only truly stable person in the Bullock household and provides them with an example of a man who cannot be broken by mere circumstance. It’s a lesson these high society folks desperately need to learn but there is only a slight indication that this has occurred by the end of the film. The two central female characters are indicative of a time when women had very specific places in society and that was mostly to look amazing, spawn, keep their damn mouths shut, and keep the castle glimmering. Of course no man is going to stop Irene from yammering and she certainly isn’t capable of either cooking or cleaning so she’s most certainly going to continue being a big old baby unless she gets smacked around now and again. Not too hard, just enough to remind her where she is and what she’s in for if she continues to use her fits in a manipulative dash for attention.