My Man Godfrey

Carole Lombard and William Powell star in the classic screwball comedy about a tramp who becomes a high-society butler.

One of the greatest screwballs, with an astonishing first scene in the New York city dumps. The gorgeous neurotic socialite Irene (Lombard) invites William Powell's magically serene, Jeevesian tramp to become butler for her family. La Cava depicts the rich as a wild tribe, appalling and endearing by turns (as if Waugh crossed with Wodehouse), and gives a genuinely disturbing though finally affirmative picture of true love. Amid the mayhem the film is a moving meditation on personal and civic responsibility.