My Man Godfrey (1936)

Carol Lombard, William Powell

"and everywhere I went, everyone was Godfrey"
Carole Lombard plays a daughter to a wealthy industrialist who takes in
 a 'forgotten man' (Powell) to play butler to her dysfunctional family.

I hate it when I show people my favorite old movies, and they respond with, "that was cute".  I have force-fed My Man Godfrey to a grand total of three people and, when the ordeal was over, they all admitted that they all liked it, but also thought it 'naive'.

Which is not really fair.  In order to properly understand screwballs, it's important to give them some context.  A few weeks ago, I was (inevitably) drawing comparisons between the 2010's and the 1930's.  And then I wondered what sort of movies people watched during the Depression.  For some reason, I associated film noir with the Depression, but instead, people were watching movies like this one, escapists fantasies about wealthy dilettantes, with plenty of brilliant Irving Berlin song-and-dance numbers for icing on the cake.  Occasionally, someone would make a serious film in an attempt to provide some relevant social commentary, notable examples being Capra's Meet John Doe and Mr Deeds Goes to Town.  My Man Godfrey is an inspired blending of the two. The very first scene is set in a shanty town, and while, in typical screwball comedy most of the story unfolds in the rarefied mien of the rich and famous, unlike other films in the genre, every now and then we take a break from the absurdity to hear Powell do some 'serious thinking'.

And because of this, Godfrey has aged very well, while those Astaire and Rogers movies seem frivolous and corny in hindsight.  And if these films do seem 'naive', that's more an unfortunate sign of our own times when everyone is so cynical and obsessed with their own inflated self-importance than any fault of these great little films.

Godfrey is in the public domain; you can watch in on youtube here.