Piccadilly Jim

P.G. Wodehouse is best remembered for his creation of the unflappable butler Jeeves in those Bertie Wooster stories. In Piccadilly Jim, Wodehouse creates another butler character Bayliss here played by the slightly more flappable Eric Blore who does save the situation for his employer Robert Montgomery the notorious London cartoonist Piccadilly Jim. Of course not quite in the way he intended.

Piccadilly Jim is your very typical Wodehouse story, a comedy of manners and satire of the upper and middle classes. In this one however we Americans get a bit of a going over for our pretensions and crass commercialism in the persons of the Pett family.

With whom Montgomery and his father Frank Morgan get involved, Montgomery in an effort to help Morgan. It seems as though Frank would like to settle down and marry Billie Burke, but the grande dame of the family, aunt Cora Witherspoon won't hear of it. Montgomery dives into the situation and romances sister Madge Evans who is about to marry a title in the person of dull and dishwater Ralph Forbes. But his instincts as a cartoonist take over and he finds a lot of material for satire in the doings of the Pett family. So much so that they feel they have to leave London where they are vacationing and had back across the pond. Of course Montgomery, Morgan, and Blore follow along on the same ocean liner.

One thing about Piccadilly Jim is that it is so perfectly cast. Just the names of the cast and the roles described and you know exactly what you are in for. This film is a great example of the studio contract system at its best, the studio had all or most of these people under contract to MGM and they just got dropped into roles perfectly suited to the image that MGM had created for them.

Robert Montgomery though American with his stage training and diction fits right into a Wodehouse English role without missing a beat. And Wodehouse's wit and eye for characters and caricature is as sharp as ever. Piccadilly Jim holds up remarkably well after over 70 years and the film is a great introduction to P.G. Wodehouse.

How on earth could one not enjoy a screwball comedy like "Piccadilly Jim?" Directing a nimble cast that included Robert Montgomery, Eric Blore, Billie Burke, Cora Witherspoon, Robert Benchley and Frank Morgan, Robert Z. Leonard kept this '36 movie popping merrily along, stirring up mayhem of one kind or another and garnering plenty of laughter along the way. Yes, okay, it's dated, and one can see the denouement coming a long way off, but -- despite its predictable nature -- the film has a satisfyingly madcap flavor that can only from the comic timing and talent of the team of acting pros assembled here. Veteran Eric Blore (playing yet another of his seemingly unlimited roster of butlers) steals every scene he is in. P.G. Wodehouse wrote the story on which the movie is based and -- for once -- none of the multitude of writers and re-writers hired by the studio for screenplay adaptation purposes managed to deflate Wodehouse's airy insouciance. It's a small gem of a movie and one too infrequently seen. Nab it!

When one reads Wodehouse novels and short stories one is in a world of gentlemen's clubs, social lion aunts and tyrannical mothers, henpecked husbands, merchants who are overly proud of their products (in one short story the rich uncle deals in jute and has a house decorated in models of birds made out of his product), would-be dictators of England who have family fortunes based on woman's lingerie, Earls who are more concerned about prize winning pigs than propriety, bartenders who have funds of stories to illustrate life with, butlers who are smarter than the aristocrats around them, idiot scions of noble houses who convince their potential in-laws of their good intentions by swallowing dog biscuits (which the in-laws manufacture), brilliant social tacticians whose schemes always come apart at the end, and golf lovers - always golf lovers. You rarely find a comment on the real world - the nobleman who made money from ladies underwear was an exception (a satire on Sir Oswald Mosley). But his variations on the artificial world of the rich and the powerful works a charm to this day. Unlike so many of his contemporary fellow novelists his works are still largely in print (mostly through the British publisher Penguin). And Wodehouse wrote over 100 books!

It is a great formula, but it can be spoiled. Arthur Treacher played Jeeves, the great butler, in two forgettable comedies in the 1930s (one with David Niven as Bertie Wooster) did not make a great impression due to poor productions. But a film like A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS or this version of PICADILLY JIM shows how it's done properly. The characters are not arch or overdone - but they all take themselves seriously. Montgomery is a night person, enjoying the nightclubs and such. But he does remember to have a caricature ready for his newspaper, folded in the pocket of his coat. Eric Blore is the perfect butler, trying to awaken his employer using bird calls (a talent he would also display with amusing results in IT'S LOVE I'M AFTER). But he is intelligent and loyal. When Cora Witherspoon's Mrs. Pett makes a sneering comment on Jim's formidable abilities as a caricaturist (as opposed to a real artist like Leonardo or Raphael), Blore's butler Bayliss boils over and rattles off a list of great artists who were gifted caricaturists, such as Daumier and Thomas Nast, and ending with Goya. Frank Morgan has not performed on stage in 20 years, but he is proud of his greatest role - as Osric in Hamlet (Peter Cushing in the Olivier film, and Robin Williams in Keneth Branagh's version). He uses it (successfully) to fool the Petts into accepting him into their family, while he secretly romances Mrs. Pett's younger sister (Billie Burke - the only one who realizes the truth in the masquerade).

In Wodehouse the road to love is never easy. Robert Montgomery makes a successful comic strip out of the Pett family (Witherspoon, Grant Mitchell, and Tommy Bupp) in revenge for their snootiness (actually it is the snootiness of Witherspoon - she thinks Morgan is a fortune hunter, and Mitchell is her henpecked husband who goes along with her; the boy Ogden Pett is one of those obnoxious kids in Wodehouse who enliven his books - actually Ogden is thoughtless and rude, but he actually thinks it's cool that he's in a comic strip). Montgomery learns that Madge Blake, the woman he loves, is angry at the comic strip and it's artist. He has to try to undue the damage his successful strip has done to try to win Madge back.

The film is a sparkling little drink of champagne, which the best of Wodehouse usually is. It's nice to see that for a change, Hollywood got the literary property's spirit right.

Robert Montgomery is smooth and snappy as the artist—er, newspaper cartoonist—known as "Piccadilly Jim." He introduces us to his father, unemployed actor Frank Morgan: "He does Shakespeare or nothing. In other words, nothing." Montgomery and Morgan lead a great cast in this very funny comedy of misunderstood motives and assumed identities.

Madge Evans is witty and lovely as the girl Montgomery spots in a restaurant and then pursues from England to America. Their romance is, of course, full of bumps and misunderstandings; Evans and Montgomery make a great pair, both of them slightly less nutty than their families, and both completely beautiful and lovable.

Madge's two aunts are also splendid. Cora Witherspoon is loud, bossy and funny as the social climber trying to prevent her female relatives from falling in love with the wrong men; and Billie Burke, who carries on a rather secretive affair with old smooth talker Morgan, is just about perfect—funny, sweet, slightly ditzy yet quietly knowing in her own way. The scenes between Burke and Morgan are really delightful—two great character actors at their absolute best.

Eric Blore is hilarious as Montgomery's faithful and eminently correct valet; he completely refuses to be discouraged when his repeated attempts to tell an anecdote about Robert the Bruce are rebuffed.

Besides the great cast, the direction is crisp and the script is excellent—a plot that is silly but holds together, packed with characters who are full of foibles but never really wicked. Lots of fun.

When the leading lady (Madge Evans) must explain why she likes her suitor (Ralph Forbes)and must contrast that attitude with her feelings for Robert Montgomery, you know the film is in trouble. Montgomery can say there's "electricity" between himself and Evans, but that spark is not transmitted to celluloid. And that is too bad, because the film is wittier -- per Wodehouse -- and better-acted than many films of the era. But Evans' loves and likings must be verbalized. The energy is simply not on the screen, only in the script. She is beautiful, though. She needed a different character -- more remote, more mysterious, more fearful of love. And then, maybe... Blore is wonderful, and lights up every scene he is in, as the butler who knows his Shakespere better than the ham, Frank Morgan. But this is one of Morgan's best roles. His only triumph, apparently, was as Osric, in Cedar Rapids. Now Osric is the foppish courtier at the end of 'Hamlet' -- hardly the role of a lifetime. But Morgan disguises himself as "Count Osric of Denmark" in order to infiltrate the family of his beloved (Billy Burke) and turns his failure as actor into personal success. It is a neat touch. Burke's flighty flutiness is hardly used in the film, but she does have a funny line about remembering how painful youth was. The Morgan-Burke romance is intended as a foil for the Montgomery-Evans courtship and that would have worked well had the main plot had more chemistry.