My Man Godfrey (1936)
A scatterbrained society girl on a scavenger hunt collects a "forgotten man" from a riverside dump and installs him as the family butler. He restores order to the chaotic, spendthrift Bullock household while she falls headlong for him, and his own polished past proves more surprising than anyone guessed.
Gregory La Cava’s My Man Godfrey, adapted from Eric Hatch’s novel, is a definitive screwball comedy, spinning a wealthy, feckless family around a Depression-era “forgotten man” hired as their butler. Its unrenewed copyright has kept it in constant circulation.
Background
My Man Godfrey was made by Universal and directed by Gregory La Cava. William Powell and Carole Lombard had been married, and divorced in 1933, and here they play a very different kind of couple: a homeless man taken in by a rich family and the scatterbrained daughter who falls for him. Eric Hatch wrote the novel it is based on.
What to watch for
The film was the first to earn Academy Award nominations in all four acting categories, for Powell, Lombard, Alice Brady and Mischa Auer, though it won none of them. Auer’s turn as the family’s freeloading “protégé” and his ape impression is a highlight, and Eugene Pallette is superb as the father driven to distraction by his household. The film’s social edge is worth noticing: the rich are shown as silly, and the poor are shown with sympathy. It remains one of the best-loved screwball comedies.
