dual personalities

Since there is NOTHING worth watching at the movies or on TV, and Netflix and Amazon have both let me down, I turned to Youtube, where one can often find classic films in their entirety, albeit sometimes not the best quality print. This time I got lucky and found the 1936 delight, My Man Godfrey, starring William Powell and Carole Lombard. It’s a hoot. William Powell plays Godfrey Smith (ahem), who lives in a shack down by the river with other victims of the Great Depression. Carole Lombard and her mean older sister, while competing to win a scavenger hunt, show up at the shanty town to find a “forgotten man”.

The lovely but ditsy Irene (Lombard) falls for the older, scruffy Godfrey (Powell) and promptly hires him to be the family butler. Hilarity ensues. This is no ordinary family; the Bullocks may be rich but the women of the family are also wild and rather eccentric. The supporting cast is superb: Eugene Pallette plays the long-suffering father; Alice Brady the flighty, clueless wife; Gail Patrick the ‘mean’ sister Cornelia; Jean Dixon the wise-cracking maid, and Mischa Auer, Carlo, Mrs. Bullock’s Italian protégé. The script is wonderful, too. Take this exchange between the maid and the newly arrived butler, Godfrey:

Godfrey; May I be frank?

Molly: Is that your name?

Godfrey: No, my name is Godfrey.

Molly: All right, be frank.

Or this brief conversation that introduces the audience to both Mr. Bullock and his wife:

Man: Take a look at that dizzy old gal with the goat.

Mr. Bullock: I’ve had to look at her for twenty years!

Man: I’m terribly sorry!

Mr. Bullock: How do you think I feel?

The sets are  over-the-top Hollywood. Take Mrs. Bullock’s bedroom, for example.

So, so much satin! Of course, the costumes are also lush. There’s even more satin and gold lamé (at least in the colorized version).

Best of all, there’s no vulgarity, no violence, and we get a happy ending. Frankly, I could use a lot more of that kind of movie in my life, so I’m going to continue looking to the past for my entertainment. What about you?

“Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind cannot bear too much reality.” I’ll say. Having had enough of real life for the time being, I took a day off yesterday to drive son #3 back to his lovely Vermont college.  I had great company for the outward journey, and wonderful music, and very, very lovely scenery to look at. It’s leaf-peeping time in the north country.

Photos taken through the windshield can’t do it justice, but  groups of Japanese tourists are indication enough that the colors were magnificent. No kidding, here they are by the side of the road risking life and limb to take pictures, and looking in the wrong direction, I might add.

Once on campus, we had lunch at Tim’s nice apartment. And there I reached my still point; it was so quiet we might have been the only people on the planet. Bliss. In another life, I would have stayed for the whole weekend. Oh, well. You know how it is: “Time past and time future/What might have been and what has been…” So I turned around and made my way home, pausing briefly at my favorite antique store

to take yet another blurry photo. Then I drove off into the sunset — literally. The sun was in my eyes all the way home. For relief I looked in the rear view mirror at the perfect autumn light that I could have enjoyed had I been driving east. Even so, it is always nice to arrive home again, despite the work that awaits. One day’s  delightful respite is good enough for me!

I leave you with this, because maybe we should laugh at this crazy world a little more often. And also because a regular dose of Mr. Newman makes everything better.

* title and quotes from T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”