He still had a pipe, so he wasn’t at the bottom.
When the mighty have fallen right into the city dump, at least those searching for a new butler, and having the luck to search the city dump, are likely to find someone who knows the position from their side, which is to say: what to expect. So goes My Man Godfrey (1936), where a dryly witty Godfrey finds his address is now the city dump, where he’s known as ‘Duke’ to his fellows, and pokes around the piles of debris in hopes of finding something to sell.
We open on the night of a scavenger hunt, a high society competition to find things, and this night one of the goals is a ‘forgotten man.’ Cornelia and her younger sitter, Irene, arrive at the dump and Cornelia sets upon Godfrey, who takes offense at this rather cold use of a man down on his luck. Cornelia huffs off, giving Irene the opportunity to express remorse, upon which Godfrey relents.
When they arrive at the headquarters of the competition, Irene wins with her ‘forgotten man,’ and ends up offering him a job as butler. Godfrey shows up the next morning, meeting Molly, the long-time maid, who expresses no surprise at the new butler, stating there’s a new butler everyday. Such is an intimation of what’s to come.
Soon, we know why: the mother’s a nutcase, Cornelia a sadistic witch, Irene’s encased in her own little world where Godfrey has fallen in love with her, Carlos is the mother’s protege, and the father worries how to support his high society family. Godfrey displays unexpected talent in navigating treacherous waters, dealing with Irene’s pouting, Cornelia’s baiting, and the mother’s apparent infatuation, or whatever it is, with Carlos. He even manages to get Irene to become engaged to a startled young man, who, if he hasn’t had too much at the party, will soon have had too much of Irene.
But a spot of trouble emerges when a gentleman shows up and recognizes Godfrey. This is Cornelia’s opportunity, and she takes advantage in trying to pry Godfrey’s big secret out of him. In a fit of pique at his unwillingness to deal, she hides a string of pearls in Godfrey’s room, and when Godfrey drunkenly stumbles home, calls the police to report the missing pearls.
But the police never find them.
Soon, however, the father’s worries prove all too true, as this is the middle of what would later be known as the Great Depression, and one day he comes home, kicks Carlos out, and sits his family for a talk that will include their possible future home: the city dump.
And then Godfrey comes sailing in, resignation letter in one hand and pearls in the other.
Witty, conscious, quick-paced, and fun, it’s a fine example of the misplaced man or woman story, of finding a new role in society and, through it, gaining a new understanding of that society and how it pettily fails those who have fallen on hard times.
While it’s not earth-shattering, it’s fun with a serious undercurrent to it. The actors know how to deliver, and, while I seriously disagreed with the ending and felt that the maid, Molly, was underutilized, it was still good for quite a few laughs.
