“My Man Godfrey,” the B&W 1936 classic, will be the featured Monday Night Movie at the Camden Amphitheatre on July 14 at 8:30 pm. The Monday Night Movies in the Park series is underwritten by Camden National Bank; bring blankets or chairs for seating. The movies are free although donations will be accepted. One of the landmark screwball comedies of the 1930s, “My Man Godfrey” offers the radiant Carole Lombard in her definitive performance as flighty young heiress Irene Bullock, who on a society scavenger hunt stumbles on Godfrey (William Powell), an erudite hobo residing in the city dump. [From a review by Hal Erickson.] Godfrey becomes the family’s butler, much to the dismay of Irene’s father Alexander (Eugene Pallette), who thinks his household is crazy enough without another apparent lunatic under his roof. Halfway through the film, we discover that Godfrey isn’t a penniless bum at all. Having been burned by an unhappy romance, Godfrey dropped out of life, taking up residence in the dump. Here his faith in humanity was restored by his fellow indigents, who managed to survive and remain optimistic despite the worst deprivations. Meanwhile, however, he wants to straighten out the Bullock family, who he feels are a basically decent bunch beneath all their pretensions and eccentricities — and along the way, of course, Irene determines that Godfrey will be her husband.
The movie, although a comedy, carries a commentary on the Great Depression. The film’s theme can best be stated by Godfrey’s own words: “The only difference between a man and a derelict is a job.”
From Roger Ebert’s review: “My Man Godfrey,” one of the treasures of 1930s screwball comedy, doesn’t merely use Lombard and Powell, it loves them. She plays Irene, a petulant kid who wants what she wants when she wants it. His Godfrey employs an attentive posture and a deep, precise voice that bespeaks an exact measurement of the situation he finds himself in. These two actors, who were briefly married (1931-33) before the film was made in 1936, embody personal style in a way that is (to use a cliché that I mean sincerely) effortlessly magical. Consider Powell, best known for the “Thin Man” movies. How can such reserve suggest such depths of feeling? How can understatement and a cool, dry delivery embody such passion? . . . And Lombard in this film has a dreamy, ditzy breathlessness that shows her sweetly yearning after this man who fascinated her even when she thought he really was a bum.
No comments:
Post a Comment