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.
