***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** This is a little known Jennifer Jones (JJ) film because it has to my knowledge, never been seen on UK television and I have never seen a video of this film in any store or video catalogue.I got mine by bidding on "E-Bay" winning the auction.Fortunatly my VCR takes both US NTSC & British PAL formats.Therefore viewers who have seen JJ play a variety of straight dramatic roles, will be pleasantly surprised by this tour de force comic role of her's.What a pity Selznick did not realise his wife had such comic potential in her later parts.Instead of casting her in say "A Farewell to Arms" (1957), he should have realised comic acting does not require an actress to be of a certain age and he could have put her in latter day Sandra Bullock type roles with great success.Comediennes can age graciously! Viewers who enjoy "Cluny Brown" should also see JJ's other comic role as Gwendolynn Chelm, the congenital liar, in John Huston's "Run With The Devil" (1954.
Ernst Lubitsch produced and directed this sparkling comedy satirising English Society, from the remote upper classes, to the fawning middle class to the working class who have to "know their place".Being English I do like a good laugh at my own expense.The reversed snobbery of the Housekeeper Mrs Maile (Sara Allgood) and the Butler Syrette at Carmel Manor, had me in stitches.
Charles Boyer playes a dissident intellectual Czech emigre (Adam Belinski), fleeing from Nazi persecution and who is living a hand to mouth existence in London because no-one understands or buys his arcane treatise on philosophy.He has the ability to think laterally and thinks if people want to feed squirrels to the nuts in Hyde Park instead of normally feeding nuts to the squirrels, "who are we to say no"? Jennifer Jones plays the title role with gusto as a plumber's niece who desperately wishes to follow her uncle's career, but Society frowns on such career moves for young ladies.Her uncle Ern (Billy Bevan) "rescues" her from a fate worse than death from the abode of the snobby Hilary Ames after she has fixed his blocked sink before an imminent party in honour of The Honourable Betty Cream (Helen Walker), (what we call in modern parlance a "Sloane Ranger" becuase of the proximity of Sloane Square in London to Knightsbridge/Chelsea - the traditional hunting ground of debutantes.
Cluny Brown is packed off by her uncle to Carmel Manor to be a humble maid and again meets Belinski.She is definitely not cut out to be a maid because she has trouble "knowing her place".She very nearly becomes betrothed to Wilson (Richard Haydn), the fawning, mother-fixated character who is the unimaginative local village chemist and who has no ambition whatsoever in life apart from doing exactly the same thing in the same place until the day he dies.I did however like his rendition of "Flow on Sweet Afton" on the harmonium!His mother (Una O'Conner) only communicates by coughing, certainly a novel method!Belinski is obviously enamoured of Cluny and tries to sabotage his rival by irritatingly ringing Wilson's shop bell then walking or hiding away "Outrageous!".The social gaffe comes at a tea party held by Wilson with his mother and friends who are gathered for an important and imminent announcement.Suddenly there is an ominous sound from the other room and it is evident the plumbing needs attention.The temptation is just too much for Cluny.She rolls up her sleeves and fixes Wilson's blocked sink in a "jiffy".Such a ,solicism cannot go unremarked and the party comes to an abrupt end.
When Belinski leaves to return to London Cluny rushes to the station to see him off.Before she knows what's happened, she too is on the train with him and has had her symbols of servitude thrown out of the carrige window by him.Belinski then talks of "Madame Belinski" and Cluny then realises he has just proposed "That's the same as Mrs isn't it?".Then Adam has an idea.Instead of writing non-selling philosophical works, he will write a murder mystery entitled "The Nightingale Murder" after a particularly noisy bird that kept him awake at Carmel Manor.The couple now reside in New York and the book is a great success.Evidently Cluny is now pregnant!To keep the family, Adam Belinski has obviously written a sequel "The Nightingale Returns".
I enjoyed every frame of this comedy.A Young Peter Lawford plays the heir Andrew Carmel whose idea of stopping Hitler is to write a letter to the London "Times"!His mother explains to her future daughter in law that "English gardens have to be planned three years ahead", so she knew where her future duty lay.C Aubrey Smith plays his usual Hollywood colonel role as friend of the Carmel family.Delightful.
Ernst Lubitsch produced and directed this sparkling comedy satirising English Society, from the remote upper classes, to the fawning middle class to the working class who have to "know their place".Being English I do like a good laugh at my own expense.The reversed snobbery of the Housekeeper Mrs Maile (Sara Allgood) and the Butler Syrette at Carmel Manor, had me in stitches.
Charles Boyer playes a dissident intellectual Czech emigre (Adam Belinski), fleeing from Nazi persecution and who is living a hand to mouth existence in London because no-one understands or buys his arcane treatise on philosophy.He has the ability to think laterally and thinks if people want to feed squirrels to the nuts in Hyde Park instead of normally feeding nuts to the squirrels, "who are we to say no"? Jennifer Jones plays the title role with gusto as a plumber's niece who desperately wishes to follow her uncle's career, but Society frowns on such career moves for young ladies.Her uncle Ern (Billy Bevan) "rescues" her from a fate worse than death from the abode of the snobby Hilary Ames after she has fixed his blocked sink before an imminent party in honour of The Honourable Betty Cream (Helen Walker), (what we call in modern parlance a "Sloane Ranger" becuase of the proximity of Sloane Square in London to Knightsbridge/Chelsea - the traditional hunting ground of debutantes.
Cluny Brown is packed off by her uncle to Carmel Manor to be a humble maid and again meets Belinski.She is definitely not cut out to be a maid because she has trouble "knowing her place".She very nearly becomes betrothed to Wilson (Richard Haydn), the fawning, mother-fixated character who is the unimaginative local village chemist and who has no ambition whatsoever in life apart from doing exactly the same thing in the same place until the day he dies.I did however like his rendition of "Flow on Sweet Afton" on the harmonium!His mother (Una O'Conner) only communicates by coughing, certainly a novel method!Belinski is obviously enamoured of Cluny and tries to sabotage his rival by irritatingly ringing Wilson's shop bell then walking or hiding away "Outrageous!".The social gaffe comes at a tea party held by Wilson with his mother and friends who are gathered for an important and imminent announcement.Suddenly there is an ominous sound from the other room and it is evident the plumbing needs attention.The temptation is just too much for Cluny.She rolls up her sleeves and fixes Wilson's blocked sink in a "jiffy".Such a ,solicism cannot go unremarked and the party comes to an abrupt end.
When Belinski leaves to return to London Cluny rushes to the station to see him off.Before she knows what's happened, she too is on the train with him and has had her symbols of servitude thrown out of the carrige window by him.Belinski then talks of "Madame Belinski" and Cluny then realises he has just proposed "That's the same as Mrs isn't it?".Then Adam has an idea.Instead of writing non-selling philosophical works, he will write a murder mystery entitled "The Nightingale Murder" after a particularly noisy bird that kept him awake at Carmel Manor.The couple now reside in New York and the book is a great success.Evidently Cluny is now pregnant!To keep the family, Adam Belinski has obviously written a sequel "The Nightingale Returns".
I enjoyed every frame of this comedy.A Young Peter Lawford plays the heir Andrew Carmel whose idea of stopping Hitler is to write a letter to the London "Times"!His mother explains to her future daughter in law that "English gardens have to be planned three years ahead", so she knew where her future duty lay.C Aubrey Smith plays his usual Hollywood colonel role as friend of the Carmel family.Delightful.