I thought we'd seen this before, but after the first scene I had no memory of it. And if we did, it was a terrible print, and this one, being Criterion, was pristine. Anyway, I like William Powell in this a lot, and a good deal more than I like him in the Thin Man films, which we watched in a batch when we had FilmStruck. He always struck me as too glib in those (and perpetually slightly sozzled), but he has an edge in this one (when needed) and marvelously understated delivery. Lombard is also amazing, but, as in Hands Across the Table, I really didn't like her character. She is an electric performer, but a little too antic for my tastes. The film itself is wonderful, although the more I think about it, the more annoyed I am at how it bottled what looked like being a righteously angry social critique.
It starts with two rich sisters arriving at a riverside (the Hudson, one presumes) dump (which seems to consist entirely of tin cans - genuinely jarring to see pre-plastic trash) as part of a scavenger hunt which involves trying to collect "things nobody wants" - which, as the older one (Cornelia) tactlessly explains to William Powell's uncharacteristically 5-o'clock-shadowed transient, includes a "forgotten man." (This must be a popular depression-era label, given the song of the same name from Gold Diggers of 1933) Powell, or the titular Godfrey (his last name is a matter of dispute), is understandably outraged and pushes Cornelia on her backside in an ash pile. She goes off in a huff, leaving her sister Irene, who is tickled pink at the idea of Cornelia not getting what she wants, behind.
She is a chatterbox and reveals all the details of the scavenger hunt, including the fact that if Godfrey goes with Irene, they will beat Cornelia, an idea that pleases Godfrey enough for him to go along. This gives Godfrey the chance to scold the assembled idle rich, who include Cornelia and Irene's mother, Angelica (who is possibly the funniest character in the film),
who has just managed to bring in a goat and its kid as part of the hunt. Angelica goes nowhere without her "protégé," a sponging foreign "musician" (who never gets around to putting a concert together) called Carlo (the Russian actor Mischa Auer, who got an Oscar nomination for his turn), which puts the idea in Irene's head of taking on Godfrey as her protégé. As they've just fired their butler (for stealing the silver), she proposes hiring Godfrey, an idea that intrigues him. She gives him some money for a smart outfit, and we're off. He arrives the next morning to meet the family's only other obvious employee, Molly, who has seen butlers come and go at a rapid clip, but has survived by adopting a phlegmatic attitude.
She advises him to keep a packed suitcase by the door, and in fact brings it up to the landing as he delivers breakfast to first, Angelica (who is delighted by his buck-u-up-o), then Cornelia, who sends him packing, Irene, who talks his ear off and is overly affectionate. He then picks up his case to carry it back downstairs and is confronted by the paterfamilias of the family, Alexander Bullock (played with his usual gruff charm by the ubiquitous (at least in paterfamilias roles in screwball comedies of this era) gravel-voiced Eugene Pallette),
who thinks this is a fly-by-night exiting his daughter's room after spending the night. Things are cleared up and Godfrey settles in fairly quickly, as he shows an aptitude for buttling (shades of Herbert Marshall in the previous year's If You Could Only Cook (and like Marshall's character, it transpires Godfrey comes from wealth)), although Cordelia is determined to get revenge, and is constantly snooping. Her antenna go up when, at a party where Irene announces she is going to get engaged (solely as an attempt to make Godfrey jealous, because she has become fixated on him) a rich friend of the family from Boston, Tommy Gray, recognizes Godfrey.
With some prompting from Godfrey, Tommy claims that Godfrey buttled for him, previously, but Cornelia smells a rat and makes sure to be there snooping when they meet up on Godfrey's day off at a swanky bar. What we discover (and Cornelia almost does) is that Godfrey's real last name is Parkes, not Smith, and he vanished from his very blue-blood Boston family after a girl broke his heart. He ended up at the dump because he intended to drown himself, but became enthralled by the tough characters who insisted on living, even though they had nothing (at least one of whom had been a banker who lost everything in the crash). Cornelia confronts Godfrey, but makes the mistake of asking him what he really thought of her, and is shocked at his use of the word "brat," and storms off. Godfrey decides to tie one on, and returns that evening decidedly sozzled. Cornelia decides to use his weakened state as a chance for revenge, and plants a priceless necklace under his mattress, before reporting it missing and ensuring that the cops know that Godfrey was originally found at the city dump. Will Cornelia gloat as Godfrey gets carried off in chains?
Will Irene wear down his resistance?
Are Irene's fits genuine? Will Carlo every write his music, or is Angelica standing in the way of his progress by demanding he do his gorilla impression all the time?
And why is Alexander frowning when he reads the financial pages? All will be revealed!
So why was I disappointed? Well, not really, but despite its pointed commentary on the social inequities, the only characters whose lives are illuminated are blue-bloods (even if they, like Godfrey, are slumming), and they are all redeemed and saved from penury at the end. The dump gets cleaned up, and its inhabitants housed, and while that is definitely a good thing, the system remains in place. Also, I want Godfrey to end up with Molly!
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