If you describe this as a searing indictment of the crippling oppression of the pre-war English class system, it doesn't sound as fun as it is. But it is that, albeit with a very light touch and more double entendres than a Carry On film. But primarily it's a romantic comedy, starring a very unworldly young woman who just loves plumbing and can't understand why people seem to want to stop her.
The film starts with a voiceover about a boring cocktail party about to begin that only the man giving it (Hilary Ames) is looking forward to. But he is desperate because his sink is clogged, and it being Sunday, he can't get hold of any plumbers. All of this he is explaining to some other person on the phone, and then the door of his flat buzzes and he thinks it's the plumber. It is in fact Charles Boyer, whom nobody in their right mind would ever confuse for a plumber, but he does, and proceeds to show him his sink. Eventually it emerges that he is Adam Belinski, a Czech writer and philosopher, in England to escape the Nazis (it's 1938) and looking for the English academic from whom Hilary sublets his flat. So they're both disappointed, particularly Belinski, because he has nowhere to stay and is desperate for a nap. But then the door buzzes again, and this time it is the plumber, although this time Hilary can't believe it is, because it's Jennifer Jones playing the titular Cluny.
She's not really a plumber, but her Uncle Arn, who was the one plumber that Hilary got through to, is, but he's off on some other job, so she thought she could help out, having observed him in action many times (although she believes he's far too timid, and that he needs to give the pipes a good thump more often). Hilary is doubtful but Belinski talks him into it ("are you the kind of man who puts on his pants to answer the phone?" - good dialogue, but it reveals its American roots, because it doesn't say "trousers") and soon Cluny has dished out a few good whacks,
and the sink is cleared. They celebrate by giving her a martini and she is instantly sozzled, and gets to talking, revealing that her Uncle Arn is always telling her that she doesn't know her place (she has just recently been to the Ritz for tea just to have people pamper her and pull out her chair for her and so on), which leads Belinski into a discussion of how nobody knows their place, and something about how some like nuts to the squirrels, and others like squirrels to the nuts, a phrase that becomes a leitmotif throughout the film. Any, at this point Uncle Arn shows up and is scandalized, and in an inversion of Eliza Doolittle's father in My Fair Lady, refuses the money Hilary offers exactly because he thinks it's payment for indecent services (this film skirts any and all codes very nicely by making clear allusions to all kinds of immoral goings-on without being explicit about it). At this point, the cocktail party begins and the focus shifts from Hilary to three of his guests (one of whom, The Honorable Betty Cream, is the only guest he specifically mentioned (twice) because she doesn't come to most parties. The other two are her admirers - Archie, who keeps proposing to Betty (and getting rejected - he swears he's only going to do it a couple more times before giving up) and Andrew Carmel (Peter "Rat Pack" Lawford - looking very much like a taller version of Davy Jones from the Monkees), who hasn't plucked up the nerve to do it once.
They happen upon the now-napping Belinski, and Andrew recognizes him, and, as a great admirer, insists on supporting him, which soon leads to him being invited up to Andrew's parents huge country house estate. Coincidentally, this is the establishment that Uncle Arn sets up employment for Cluny as a maid, to prevent any more shenanigans, sending the poor girl off with just a present of a picture of himself.
And it is at the estate that all but the coda of the film takes place at, as Belinksi falls for Cluny, but Cluny falls for (or convinces herself that she does) the stuffy mother's-boy local chemist Jonathan Wilson (who has lived his entire life in the same house and intends to live the rest of it in there). Soon, also, Betty and Andrew show up and it looks at one point as if Belinski is going to pursue Betty,
something which might be just the impetus Andrew needs to propose to her. Poor Cluny, on the other hand, is having to learn the ways of the Staff (taught by the dour valet Syrette and housekeeper Mrs. Maile)
and thus Her Place, while all the time the louche continental Belinski keeps on bucking convention, to the acute discomfort of most of the Brits (the childlike Cluny excepted). All seems to be going well with Wilson, to the extent that he throws a party and invites several other members of the local petty (literally) bourgeoisie to hear him announce his intention to wed Cluny... but then the pipes start banging, and an infectious enthusiasm to plumb overtakes Cluny, to the horror of the hidebound Wilson.
This is an immensely enjoyable little rom-com with, as I said, a real satirical edge, albeit for a system that time has eroded anyway. Its setting is interesting, on the cusp of WWII (a war that had just ended when the film was made), so the plucky character of the British is lauded just as their caste system is gently derided. Interestingly, while most of the cast are really British (or Irish - Wilson's mother is played by noted Universal Monster-film screecher Una O'Connor), both young women are American, doing credible English accents (albeit slightly less so in the case of Helen Walker, the actress whose career was just about to be ruined by a car crash that killed a passenger). The dialogue is endlessly witty and perfectly delivered, and frivolous without preventing you really caring what happens to the characters. (You might wish that Cluny were not quite so innocent that she appears slightly simple, or that the age difference between Jones and Boyer were not so great, but these are not enough to sour the film.) It transpires, in the end, that the only way to escape the English class system is to go to America, and support yourself writing best-selling thrillers. Squirrels to the nuts, indeed.
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