Summary
A soot-smudged Cinderella named Molly O’Toole, clutching a cardboard valise instead of a glass slipper, steps off the rural branch-line train beneath the brooding turrets of Castle Crags—an estate so baronial it seems to have been carved from debt and dynastic hubris. The real chatelaine, Mrs. J. Van Ranselear Todd, is absent; her gilded name, however, clings to the air like expensive perfume. A villager’s curtsey, a telegram misread, a chauffeur’s cap proffered too hastily—suddenly the Irish char-girl is swaddled in sable and sovereignty. While she savors the vertiginous view from the precipice of someone else’s identity, Captain Hancock—neighboring fox-hunter, mining magnate, collector of Picassos and pulchritude—gallops up with a matrimony glinting sharper than his spurs. Yet the true heir, Algernon Todd, prodigal and donkey-borne, trots home incognito, trading his family crest for a battered duster and a job at the ignition switch of the Rolls. From the servants’ stair to the moonlit parapet, two impostors orbit: he pretending to steer for wages, she pretending to own the stars. Forged banknotes, forged hearts, forged destinies—each signature loops them tighter until the masquerade frays into confession. When the rightful matriarch finally sweeps through the porte-cochère with the chill of old money and the scent of Parisian cigarettes, she finds not a usurper to eject but a daughter-in-law to embrace, the castle’s cracked façade momentarily patched by the warmth of democratic affection.
Synopsis
Poor Molly O'Toole takes a job as housekeeper at the country home of wealthy Mrs. J. Van Ranselear Todd. Arriving at "Castle Crags," Molly is mistaken by the villagers for Mrs. Todd, and decides to continue the masquerade, thus attracting the attentions of Captain Hancock, her wealthy neighbor. Meanwhile Mrs. Todd's roguish son Algernon has purchased a donkey and cart from peddler Joe Holmes and is traveling through the country when he arrives at Castle Crags to discover Molly masquerading as his mother. Deciding not to reveal his own identity or expose Molly, Algernon takes a job as her chauffeur. The two fall in love and Algernon begs Molly to marry him, but she is reluctant to part with the captain's millions. A series of events makes Molly believe that her chauffeur has become a forger on her account, however, and she realizes her love for him. She resolves to give up the captain, but at that point Mrs. Todd arrives, claims Algernon as her son and welcomes Molly as her future daughter-in-law.
Review Excerpt
"
A masquerade that begins with a mispronounced surname ends with a wedding march—yet every frame of The Upper Crust vibrates with the aftershock of social earthquakes still rumbling a century later.
Viewed today, Charles Sherman’s screenplay feels like a brittle champagne glass hurled against the marble of Gilded-Age entitlement: shards glitter, somebody bleeds, and the butler sweeps the evidence under a Persian rug. Director Joe Boyle never allows the comic scaffolding to sag into farce; inst..."
