Although based on the same book as MY MAN GODFREY, this reminds me more of the TOPPER films in its humour, probably because it's a Hal Roach film, it's got the same writers, got a lot of the same cast and also directed by the same Norman McLeod. There's also a bit of THREE CORNERED MOON thrown in for good measure.
Compared with them, this is neither as interesting nor as funny. It's ok, it's reasonably watchable (thus the 5 out of 10 score) but nothing memorable.
Even MY MAN GODFRY (which I didn't like too much either) had a bit of social commentary in it but this misses a trick in just going for laughs. Without finding out who the characters are and what makes them tick, you can't empathise with them which is ok in a really funny, zany comedy but when there's an actual story going on like in this, you need a little more, you need the characters to be real people.
The cinematography in this bizarrely was Oscar nominated - I can't think why - I thought it was awful. Even though this is not in any way, derived from a play (it's derived from another film!) it is filmed in a very stagey way as though they only had one camera and its wheels on it had got jammed and to compensate Norman McLeod just had everyone run around a lot; not his best work. Watch TOPPER instead!
Compared with them, this is neither as interesting nor as funny. It's ok, it's reasonably watchable (thus the 5 out of 10 score) but nothing memorable.
Even MY MAN GODFRY (which I didn't like too much either) had a bit of social commentary in it but this misses a trick in just going for laughs. Without finding out who the characters are and what makes them tick, you can't empathise with them which is ok in a really funny, zany comedy but when there's an actual story going on like in this, you need a little more, you need the characters to be real people.
The cinematography in this bizarrely was Oscar nominated - I can't think why - I thought it was awful. Even though this is not in any way, derived from a play (it's derived from another film!) it is filmed in a very stagey way as though they only had one camera and its wheels on it had got jammed and to compensate Norman McLeod just had everyone run around a lot; not his best work. Watch TOPPER instead!