Of course the deck is slightly stacked in this story of a bum unexpectedly entering a "stinking rich" family. It is fairly rapidly revealed that the bum was not really one, that he comes from mostly the same old money background as the family itself, and that this accounts for his immediate ability to find his way around with the Bullocks, he has got at his disposal all the required codes and keys enabling him to wrap them all around his finger.
Beyond its well-meaning fairy tale conclusion - the poor being given a job and getting richer or at least a less precarious life, while the spoiled rich will not have to endure poverty, though they might have rather deserved it through their brainlessness - the film is not deep down a socially-conscious comedy, such as some of Capra's most well-known pictures or Sullivan's Travels from Preston Sturges. It is rather the epitome of the screwball genre. Which means that, though it does incorporate a fair amount of nuttiness occasionally verging on the absurd, it also relies first and mainly on a rigorous system of cogs and wheels well-controlled by the screenwriters and the director.
The disguise motive has provided some of the best comedies on stage, such as Shakespeare's Twelfth Night or the very subtle comedies from XVIIIth century French playwright Marivaux, so it is not surprising that it soon became a feature of some of the best comedies on screen as well. Here there is a double level of travesty : the butler is a former bum, but actually the bum was himself a former millionaire, so it actually works on three levels. And as often in such stories the comical effect is based on an inversion of normal relations, Godfrey the servant becoming in some way the master of the clueless Bullock family.
There are much darker variations on a similar theme, such as The Servant by Joseph Losey or earlier on Miss Julie by Ibsen. Nothing remotely as dark as that here. Godfrey is a broadly benevolent and selfless influence, though his relations with Irene prove that he has no real idea on how to manage the various unexpected effects of his irruption in the dysfunctional Bullock household. He will not find the solution himself - Irene eventually will, which is a brilliant last twist of the story, the wise master has found his own master in the seemingly brainless young woman. Great conclusion.
Does one really have to add that William Powell and Carole Lombard are shining bright and the rest of the cast is outstanding? Probably not.
Review of My Man Godfrey
