Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8541 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-11-13
• Rating: Unrated
• Formats: Black & White, NTSC
• Running time: 130 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Director Gregory La Cava deftly balances satire, romance, and social comment in this 1936 classic, which echoes Frank Capra in its Depression-era subtext. The Bullocks are a well-heeled, harebrained Manhattan family genetically engineered for screwball collisions: father Alexander (Eugene Pallette, of the foghorn voice and thick-knit eyebrows) is the breadwinner at wit's end, thanks to his spoiled daughters, the sultry Cornelia (Gail Patrick) and the sweet but scatterbrained Irene (a luminous Carole Lombard), his dizzy and doting wife, Angelica (Alice Brady), and her "protégé," Italian freeloader Carlo (Mischa Auer). When Irene wins a society scavenger hunt (and atypically trumps her scheming sister) by producing a "lost man," a seeming tramp named Godfrey (William Powell), all their lives are transformed. With the always suave, effortlessly funny Powell in the title role, this mystery man provides the film's conscience and its model of decency; the giddy, passionate Lombard holds out its model for triumphant love. In a movie riddled with memorable comic highlights, the real miracle is the unapologetic romanticism that prevails. --Sam Sutherland

Amazon.com
Classic screwball comedy with Lombard as madcap heiress who hires Powell as butler after finding him on garbage hunt. Marvelously funny Powell teaches them money isn't everything. He's actually from a wealthy Boston family and took up residence at the dump after a bad love affair.

From Eric Hatch novel. Academy Award nominations for Best Director-Gregory LaCava; Best Actor-Powell; Best Actress-Lombard; Best Supporting Actor-Mowbray; Best Supporting Actress-Brady; and Best Screenplay-Eric Hatch and Morris Ryskinch. Great movie!

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Customer Reviews

The Classic Screwball Comedy
Funniest screwball comedy ever made, in a beautiful transfer. If you've ever seen this on tv or on other (cheaper) dvds, you won't believe how much better the Criterion restored version is. Crisp & beautiful. It's a version the movie deserves. You'll see things in this transfer that were too dark to see before & it makes the art deco look of the posh places sparkle. Movie restoration at its best - for the best screwball comedy ever made.

sometimes classics can't be matched
My Man Godfrey {1936} is a classic in every sense of the word. It is a wonderful picture of Have's and Have's Not during a period that was hard on even some of the Have's. It is a study of human nature and filled with characters so different from each other to give a fantastic picture of humanity. William Powell gives a performance that shows why he was a major box office draw. It is a movie not to be missed. If only to make you think about where you fit in the scheme of society.

Nice Movie, Bad Presentation
Don't buy this one! Nice example of the 30's screwball comedy genre. But this particular DVD version (My Man Godfrey) is badly flawed by the insertion throughout the whole movie of a "bug" in the lower right of the picture. The bug is "RE" which evidently stands for "Reel Enterprises," the copyright owner for this version. Why would they deface such a good movie by inserting such a distraction? Surely not for the publicity; I'll never buy another product from Reel Enterprises.