The Crimson Moviegoer

"My Man Godfrey" is the apogee of madness, and it succeeds for one very good reason; Carole Lombard. As you sit there helplessly in your seat, dissolved in hilarity, you are likely to begin attributing your shameful condition to William Powell or to the drunk who wrote the lines. But it's no good passing the buck. The latter two factors contribute considerable shares, to be sure, but Carole's the crux of the excruciation. You may have seen her often before (she's been in pictures more years than she likes to count), and never liked her at all. As a society belle with enough sense to be bored with her life, she may have bored in her turn. But now in the role of an unmitigated moron who throws herself into everything with an unquestioning vehemence, she is the answer to an escapist's prayer.

Mr. Powell as Butler Godfrey, the threadbare, unshaven Harvard man whom she picked up off the city dump as the culmination of a scavenger hunt, is the vent to all her immoderate enthusiasm. When the butler's room is about to be searched for missing pearls, she tears through the house like a four-year-old looking for the Christmas tree, deliriously screaming. "Godfrey, Godfrey, hide them if you've got them, the cope are coming!" Later she plunges about in furious joy, convinced that Godfrey loves her because he put her, dressed in evening clothes, into the cold shower. But, there being no intention to slight that genius of suavity, William Powell, it must be conceded that none other could preserve the impeccable dignity that characerizes him throughout the picture, and gives rise to the hilarious contrast. Alice Brady is perfect as the index of what Carole's madness comes to when it matures, and therefore makes us feel sorry for Godfrey. And nosegays to Gall Patrick, the sour note in the family, and Eugene Pallette, the father of the raving crew.

Hauling out the other Grecian mask, the University gives "Godfrey" a very gium companion by the name of "A Son Comes Home." It is mildly interesting to see Wallace Ford, a reporter, catch the villain of the piece, after having summed up the case as a matter of writing to every port in the country and saying. "If you see a man, stop him." It is also interesting to see that Mary Boland is a highly talented tragedienne, and she it is who puts the pathos in a mother's sacrificing her wicked son. But somehow one can't help hoping that she be allowed to return to Charlie Ruggles and comedy.

Time Marches On, telling all about new methods in primary schools and President Roosevelt. No connection seems to be intended.