Nov. 27 movie: My Man Godfrey. A crazy thing happened tonight. I had no movies saved on the DVR, nothing from Netflix, and nothing good on TCM. What's a girl to do?
Dip into the DVD collection of course, with one of the great screwball comedies. William Powell plays Godfrey, a down-on-his-luck former Boston aristocrat who somehow ends up working as the butler for an insane Park Avenue family, which includes grumpy father Eugene Pallette, ditzy mother Alice Brady, bitchy sister Gail Patrick, long-suffering maid Jean Dixon, and our heroine, Carole Lombard. The family are mostly likeable, but there's an edge to the humor that keeps it from being saccharine. The humor also balances a storyline about homeless men which could have been heavy-handed and preachy, but ends up just a light social satire.
This movie is hilarious from beginning to end. The DVD has some nice extras, especially a blooper reel showing Carole Lombard flubbing her lines and then swearing like a sailor. I meant to watch the commentary by historian Bob Gilpin, which I heard was good. But once the movie started I wanted to hear the dialogue, so I turned the commentary off.
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