For the life of me, I don't understand why June Allyson had a career. If you like June Allyson, you and I have very different tastes and you're better off not taking my advice about movies. For the rest of you sane moviegoers, beware any movie with her in the romantic lead. Her perpetual laryngitis is so grating, it actually makes me want to run out of the room screaming. I lost track of how many times she heaved painful breaths in the middle of her sentences because her voice gave out on her.
My Man Godfrey is a remake of the screwball comedy starring Carole Lombard and William Powell in 1936, so if you didn't like the original-I didn't-you stand little chance of liking the remake-I didn't, either. June Allyson plays a rich, spoiled, immature brat who acts like a five-year-old, pouting and throwing emotional tantrums when she doesn't get her way. She adopts a homeless bum as her "protégé" and hires him as her family's butler. Then, because he's incredibly handsome, genteel, and capable, she gets a crush on him. However, there's absolutely no redeeming quality about her, so why would he return her feelings?
David Niven was an obvious choice to play the classy butler, but for the entire movie it felt like he was "slumming it" with lesser actors, perhaps as a favor to Dick Powell, a co-producer of his television series Four Star Playhouse. David Niven doesn't belong in a June Allyson movie, and he certainly shouldn't be paired up with someone so repellant. It doesn't make any sense, and even though he gives a flawless performance as the wise, caring, charming title character, he isn't enough to save the movie-and neither are his incredible good looks, which are, thankfully, mentioned several times throughout the movie.
The only reason I was even able to sit through this movie was because I was drooling over David Niven in his tuxedo. Even in the first scene when he's homeless, he's unstoppably cute in his sailor's cap. If you aren't in love with The Niv, you probably will turn My Man Godfrey off, and no one will blame you.
My Man Godfrey is a remake of the screwball comedy starring Carole Lombard and William Powell in 1936, so if you didn't like the original-I didn't-you stand little chance of liking the remake-I didn't, either. June Allyson plays a rich, spoiled, immature brat who acts like a five-year-old, pouting and throwing emotional tantrums when she doesn't get her way. She adopts a homeless bum as her "protégé" and hires him as her family's butler. Then, because he's incredibly handsome, genteel, and capable, she gets a crush on him. However, there's absolutely no redeeming quality about her, so why would he return her feelings?
David Niven was an obvious choice to play the classy butler, but for the entire movie it felt like he was "slumming it" with lesser actors, perhaps as a favor to Dick Powell, a co-producer of his television series Four Star Playhouse. David Niven doesn't belong in a June Allyson movie, and he certainly shouldn't be paired up with someone so repellant. It doesn't make any sense, and even though he gives a flawless performance as the wise, caring, charming title character, he isn't enough to save the movie-and neither are his incredible good looks, which are, thankfully, mentioned several times throughout the movie.
The only reason I was even able to sit through this movie was because I was drooling over David Niven in his tuxedo. Even in the first scene when he's homeless, he's unstoppably cute in his sailor's cap. If you aren't in love with The Niv, you probably will turn My Man Godfrey off, and no one will blame you.