Week 8. My Man Godfrey (1936)

4 STARS - REEEALLY GOOD!!

“I liked him as a butler.  Irene has a huge crush on him and he just ignored her blabbering.”--Sydney

The Film:  Godfrey (William Powell), the disillusioned scion of a wealthy family, lives anonymously in a dump with the humble, but goodhearted downtrodden in this Depression era comedy.  Things change when sisters Irene (Carole Lombard) and Cornelia Bullock, compete to grab him as a specimen “forgotten man" to win a tasteless scavenger hunt played with their idle rich friends.  When this leads to a job as the family butler, he must constantly spur Irene's compromising advances and dodge Cornelia's vengeful sabotages, all the while






hiding his true identity.  Godfrey observes the family's absurd dramas with detached amusement and subtle sarcasm, until generously he finds a way to help both ends of the social spectrum.

The Society:  The girls loved Godfrey and thought he was pretty cool.  Kenzie especially loved that he could just hang back with a sarcastic cool—a little like herself, perhaps.  And they all thought the rich family was pretty trippy, but funny.  It also amused them that just about every female in the household seemed to have a thing for Godfrey, including the maid.  Dad, of course, didn’t get Powell’s appeal.  He sure was no Brad Pitt.  Maybe the definition for “hunk,” was a little looser in those days.  But we had fun.  The girls have definitely engaged more with our latest selections.  And Mom really gets us all in the mood by totally digging on fixing a fun dinner.  The Family Film Society, first just a crazy idea, then a family fun night, is slowly becoming a much anticipated weekly tradition.     

The Family Vote:

Syd - 5 Stars - I liked him as a butler.  Irene has a huge crush on him and he just ignored her blabbering.

Kayla - 4 Stars - I liked the dump before they changed it.  I don’t like what they changed it to.  The family was annoying.

Kenz - 4 Stars - Godfrey was a smart, clever character with a great wit and much patience.  I don’t think (even though Irene insisted) that he ever loved her…well, maybe he did a little bit.  Irene was pathetic, trailing the butler around like a dog to a man with ice cream, always wearing the ugly, black shroud.

Stacy - 4 Stars - When I was little my Grandma Newbold always would talk about the hobos getting off the train by her house and how they were something to be feared.  This movie made me more aware of their plight, when they refer to him as a “forgotten man,” as if he was nothing but that title.  It made me sad.  The women in this movie were so spoiled and selfish it made me cringe.

Ladd - 3 Stars - Billed as one of the best screwball comedies of the era, I thought the wealthy family members too pathetically childish to hold my interest.  And the movie’s resolution to the romantic angle between Irene and Godfrey  seemed forced and unbelievable.  Give me “You Can’t Take it With You,” “Arsenic and Old Lace,” or “Miracle of Morgan’s Creek,” any day.  But Powell’s performance as a subtly sarcastic, world-weary, quietly amused butler to the zany rich, holds the movie together. 

Thanks for Dinner, Mom!

Theme - Hobos

           

Tin foil dinners--cooked crispy charred at the edges--in our backyard fire pit.

Dessert was to be s’mores, but the late hour prevented it.

We ate outside to the accompaniment of “Old Rock Candy Mountain,” played from YouTube.  (Both the Harry McClintock version and the cleaned-up Burl Ives’ version.)