My husband Godfrey

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Movie
German title My husband Godfrey
original title My Man Godfrey
production country USA
original language English
Publishing year 1936
length 94 minutes
Rod
directing Gregory La Cava
script Gregory La Cava
Morrie Ryskind
Eric Hatch
production Charles R. Rogers for Universal Studios
music Charles Previn
camera Ted Tetzlaff
cut Ted J. Kent
occupation
synchronization

My Man Godfrey is a 1936 American screwball comedy starring William Powell and Carole Lombard and directed by Gregory La Cava .

plot

New York heiresses Cornelia and Irene Bullock attend an extravagant party at the Waldorf-Ritz Hotel . This party hosts a charity scavenger hunt that includes finding a "forgotten man" (a middle-class citizen who was devastated by the Depression). The sisters, who play in different teams, both try to find the "forgotten man" among the homeless people living there at a municipal garbage dump , with Cornelia initially seeming faster and therefore more successful. The two meet Godfrey Parke. However, the surprisingly well-behaved Godfrey is appalled by Cornelia's vulgar way of persuading him with a dollar bill. In contrast, he finds her sister Irene sympathetic. The two agree that Irene can bring Godfrey as her find. Irene can win the scavenger hunt, but Godfrey is repelled by the meaningless lifestyle of the rich. Just as Godfrey is about to return to the dump, Irene offers him a job as the Bullock family's butler .

As Godfrey quickly discovers, the Bullocks are a dysfunctional family. Cornelia is unable to love anyone but herself. The goofy matriarch Mrs. Bullock, Angelica to her friends, has a protégé named Carlo who imitates a gorilla at every opportunity and really devours everything that seems edible. The family squanders its money on extravagance and nonsense faster than the head, Mr. Alexander Bullock, the only normal member of the family, can earn it. One day at a party in Godfrey, Tommy Gray, a guest, recognizes his old friend from college days. To save Godfrey from embarrassment, Tommy reveals that Godfrey is his former butler with five children. Deeply disappointed, Irene immediately declares her engagement to Charly Van Rumple, a wealthy but boring heir to a large fortune. Meanwhile, it turns out that Godfrey is actually from a wealthy Boston family and is voluntarily living in the dump due to a failed relationship. The Bullocks have their own way of reacting to Tommy's alleged revelation: Cornelia tries to blackmail Godfrey by claiming he stole her pearls. Mother Angelica gets on her nerves and in the end Irene decides to break off her engagement to Charly. The two sisters then go on a longer trip to Europe. However, upon her return, Irene is still in love with Godfrey.

In the meantime, Godfrey has managed to provide jobs and a future for the homeless. However, Alexander Bullock has to admit to having lost his entire fortune. Just as the family begins to despair, Godfrey explains that he saved the Bullocks from bankruptcy through clever transactions. Counseling every member of the family, he returns to his former dump, which he's turned into a thriving nightclub. Irene follows him, and thanks to Mr. Gray's support, the two manage to get married in the end.

background

My Man Godfrey typifies the " screwball comedies " that were very popular in the 1930s and early 1940s. In addition, the film comments on the social conditions during the Great Depression , which worsened the economic situation of many millions. Much like Mr. Deeds goes to town or Love in an instant , the film contrasts the unequal distribution of wealth across the country and the sometimes obscene squandering of wealth by a select few. The film was directed by Gregory La Cava , who was able to enlist the then well-known author and Pulitzer Prize winner Morrie Ryskind to work on the screenplay . In addition, the former newspaper reporter Eric Hatch (1901-1973) was involved in the screenplay, who had provided the template for the film with the short novel 1101 Park Avenue published in 1935. Constance Bennett was initially set to play Irene Bullock , and Miriam Hopkins was also in the pipeline. It was lead actor William Powell thinking of his ex-wife , Carole Lombard , to whom he had been married between 1931 and 1933. Though the marriage broke up, Powell and Lombard remained close friends until her death in a plane crash in 1942.

The film was shot between April 15 and May 27, 1936, then some retakes were made in June 1936. The total budget was $656,000. Screenwriters Ryskind, Hatch, and LaCava often improvised and sometimes wrote dialogue for the cast the night before shooting. This forced the actors to react more or less spontaneously. La Cava had a clash with William Powell early in filming over interpreting the character of Godfrey. The two men decided to settle their differences over a bottle of bourbon . The next day Powell was missing and no one knew where he was. Then La Cava received a telegram from the actor:

WE MAY HAVE FOUND GODFREY LAST NIGHT, BUT WE LOST POWELL. SEE YOU TOMORROW. (WE MAY FOUND GODFREY LAST NIGHT, BUT POWELL WAS LOST. SEE YOU TOMORROW.)

For Powell, 1936 was the best year of his career thanks to further successes including as Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. in The Great Ziegfeld , opposite Jean Arthur in The Ex Mr. Bradford and with Myrna Loy and Jean Harlow in Funny Sinners . My Man Godfrey , which went into national distribution in September 1936, became a huge financial success for the Universal Pictures studio , which had recently slipped into bankruptcy. However, thanks to the help of other hits such as Show Boat , directed by James Whale , and most notably Three Smart Girls , which made Deanna Durbin the studio's biggest star, the company was saved from the sale.

In 1957, the studio made a remake of My Man Godfrey starring June Allyson and David Niven . In the German-speaking world, this strip entitled Mein Mann Gottfried was released in cinemas.

reviews

Upon its premiere, My Man Godfrey received largely positive reviews. The trade journal Variety , for example, expressly praised all the major actors and drew the conclusion: "William Powell and Carole Lombard act so happily together in this excellently made comedy. The story is wacky, but not overly so, and becomes a sophisticated cinematic treatment of Erich Hatch's novel.” The New York Times read: “With compliments to Universal, they presented the craziest comedy of the year yesterday […] Da there might be one or two serious moments in the film; there may be a few lines in the script that don't hold a laugh. But somehow we can't remember them."

To date, the film has only received good reviews. All 28 reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes review portal are positive, giving the film a 100% rating. The critics' consensus reads: "A top-notch satire in a class of its own, My Man Godfrey 's screwball comedy is as sharp as the social commentary is scathing. " “. US film critic Roger Ebert gave the film a four-star rating and placed it on his Great Movies list , saying Powell and Lombard played "effortlessly magical" and Ted Tatzlaff's camera work was so beautiful that it made a "shining argument" for everyone praises to black and white films. He concluded: "The film, the actors in it, the way it was produced, the system that produced it, and the viewers who loved it have all been replaced by a pop culture of mindless vulgarity. But the film survives and to see it is to be saved by some people who don't care that it makes a difference [...] to some people."

awards

The New York Times included the film in its list of the "Ten Best Movies of 1936." In 1937, My Man Godfrey also received six Oscar nominations, but he received nothing in all categories:

My Man Godfrey was the first film to receive a nomination in all four actor categories. In addition, My Man Godfrey is the only film in Oscar history to have received nominations in all major categories but no nomination for Best Picture of the Year.

In 1999 it was included in the National Film Registry . The American Film Institute ranks the film as the 44th best American comedy of all time.

synchronization

The German dubbed version was created in 1976 for a television broadcast.

role actor voice actor
Godfrey Smith William Powell Fred Maire
Alexander Bullock Eugene Palette Mornings from Gadow
Cornelia Bullock Gail Patrick Victoria Brams
carol Mischa Auer Hartmut Neugebauer
Tommy Gray Alan Mowbray Horst Naumann
Guthrie, leader of the scavenger hunt Franklin Pangborn Reinhard Glemnitz
Bob, homeless man Robert Perry Michael Habeck
homeless person Ernie Adams Kurt Zips
Arthur Valentine Arthur Wanzer Manfred Lichtenfeld
police detective Edward Gargan Niels Clausnitzer

web links

itemizations

  1. ↑ CJ Maloney, Amity Shlaes: The Forgotten Man. 31 August 2009, retrieved 21 August 2020 (English).
  2. ↑ Business Data at the Internet Movie Database
  3. ↑ Review by Variety
  4. ↑ Review at Rotten Tomatoes
  5. ↑ My husband Godfrey. In: Lexicon of international film . Filmdienst , retrieved March 2, 2017 .Template:LdiF/Maintenance/Access used 
  6. ↑ Review by Roger Ebert
  7. ↑ My husband Godfrey. In: synchronkartei.de. Deutsche Synchronkartei , retrieved 24 June 2017 .