Review:

"You know, there's no sense in struggling against a thing when it's got you. It's got you, and that's all there is to it. It's got you." My Man Godfrey hooks you from the very first scene and just reels you in. There's really no sense struggling against its charms. This screwball comedy evokes Bringing Up Baby (1938) and It Happened One Night (1934), but is its own brilliant masterpiece. Almost a century later, the acting holds up. As it turned out, this was the first film that was nominated in all four acting categories at the Academy Awards. Carole Lombard and ex-husband William Powell have electrifying chemistry (the dishwashing scene is a personal favorite). In fact, when Powell got the role, he insisted that only Lombard could play Irene to his Godfrey. The rest of the cast supported the leads wonderfully such that you could (and should) watch the same scene multiple times and find something new. The script is extremely witty and breath-takingly breezy, and delivered in that fast clipped manner of the times. William Powell delivers his lines more slowly and more naturally sounding to our modern ears and, perhaps because of that, his acting feels more modern. Gregory La Cava received his first of two consecutive Oscar nomination for directing with My Man Godfrey. His film is set during the Depression and is a light social critique on class. Judged against its contemporaries with a modern lens, I think it's perfection. The only mystery is how it did not win the Oscar for any of the actors.