Director:
Arthur Greville Collins Year:
1936 Rating: 5.0
This is surprisingly one of only two films based on the characters created
by P.G. Wodehouse in a series of many short stories and novels primarily
between 1915 and 1930. The stories and characters were very much loved by
the British public and there was a popular TV series of them in the 1970's.
They feel very much of another age which is part of their charm to today's
audiences. Bertie Wooster is a young man somehow of independent means who
lives in a bubble of privilege, constantly gets into scrapes and in his addled
manner manages to survive. Jeeves is his valet - a gentleman's gentleman
- who is a proper Englishman who takes care of Wooster and is often the means
of his getting out of trouble. I know them a bit from the TV show but have
never read any of the books. Wodehouse said of this film and the sequel that
followed that it was terrible and that in the first 57 minutes of it they
got everything wrong. The film lasts 57 minutes. Which feels short even for
a B film. There is a book from Wodehouse of the same name but he said not
one word was taken from it.
The plot is paper thin but it held my interest mainly for the cast. A young
David Niven plays Wooster as a fast talking skirt-chasing nitwit who actually
says very little of any sense and manages to screw up everything. Jeeves
is the great English character actor Arthur Treacher who I have a soft spot
for. Not so much for the actor but for the fast-food restaurants named after
him. Many may not have even heard of either the actor or the restaurants
but in the 1970s they were all over. Fish and Chips which I guess is the
British connection. Now there is only one left. But for about two months
I ate from there nearly every night. It was located in NYC at 43rd and 8th
avenue and I was living across the street at the Time Square Motel - where
only the giant cockroaches were satisfied customers. Usually around 10pm
I would go over there to pick up food and it was filled with prostitutes,
pimps and low-lifes without much money like me. I think a good meal came
to around $2. Every now and then one of the fine ladies would come on to
me but I would say if I could afford to would I be eating here? That would
get a laugh. From them. Not so much from the pimps in their fashions right
out of Blaxploitation movies. So anyways, any time I come across the actor
it brings memories back to me.
Also, in the cast is the always lovely Virginia Field who every time I see
her I ask why she didn't become a bigger star. And then in one of the oddest
cast decisions they give a large role to Willie Best. As Drowsy. Willie Best
was a black comedian who specialized in Yes Suh, No Suh slow thinking comedy
common to many of the black comedians in film at the time. He can be funny
at times but underneath your laughter you are cringing at the racist stereotype.
Putting him in a Wooster and Jeeves film seems like quite the stretch. Not
a great fit.
In the 57 minutes they squeeze a fair amount in. Jeeves is explaining to
Wooster that he is handing in his papers because he is tired of nearly being
killed on multiple occasions for one of Wooster's misadventures with women.
Just as that is happening a mysterious woman knocks on the door and finds
refuge inside from two men who were following her. Jeeves locks Wooster in
his bedroom to keep him out of trouble. In the morning the woman is gone
but Bertie who saw a card for a hotel in her pocket goes off in pursuit with
Jeeves who has decided to stay. On the way they pick up Drowsy loaded down
with a saxophone and orphaned from his band. He teaches them swing. The hotel
turns out to be a beehive of spies after a formula that the woman has. Shenanigans
follow. Mildly amusing and only 57 minutes. In the sequel Step Lively Jeeves
they could not obtain the services of Niven and so the film only has Jeeves
with Treacher again.
