My Man Godfrey: Still smarter than the rest of the room

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, yeah. If you enjoy movies where people talk fast and say things that actually cut deep, you’ll dig this. If you need a movie to be a constant adrenaline rush or if you hate seeing rich people get humiliated, you might want to skip it.

It’s a screwball comedy, but it’s got this weirdly tired, cynical edge to it. I found myself thinking about Morning Glory while watching, just because there’s a similar feeling of people scrambling to keep their heads above water, even if their water is made of champagne and inherited money.

The butler did it, but better

William Powell is basically a king here. He plays Godfrey with this look in his eyes like he’s bored of the entire world, and honestly, I get it. He has to manage this family of absolute lunatics who treat life like a giant sandbox.

Carole Lombard is relentless. She plays the socialite Irene, and she’s just all over the place. There’s a scene early on where she’s just bouncing around the screen, and I think I counted three times where she almost knocked over a lamp. It’s chaotic. It’s great.

• The way Godfrey handles the kitchen staff is like watching a chess master play against a toddler.
• The mother of the family is basically a walking tragedy in a fancy dress.
• I’m still not sure if the dad actually knows what’s going on at any given moment.

The dialogue is so fast you’ll probably miss half of it on your first watch. It’s not like those modern comedies that pause for the audience to catch up. They just keep talking and if you don’t get it, well, too bad for you. I love that.

There’s a specific moment near the middle where the film stops being a goof-off comedy and touches on how gross the scavenger hunt was in the first place. It’s a sharp turn. It’s not a lecture, just a quick observation that makes the rest of the silliness feel a bit more earned.

Also, the butler's quarters? They look like a closet. I keep wondering if the set designer did that on purpose to make him look even more out of place. It’s a tiny detail, but it sticks in your head.

Some of the supporting characters are a bit much. The guy playing the 'forgotten man' who just sleeps everywhere? He gets a little tiresome after the third time he pops up. But hey, it’s a 1936 movie. They had to fill the runtime somehow. 🤷

It’s not a masterpiece that’s going to change your life, but it’s a really solid way to spend an hour and a half. It’s fun, it’s mean in the right ways, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. That’s more than I can say for most stuff coming out these days.