Molly and Me

Rather obscure comedy of manners from TCF. It's not a knee-slapper, but the situation's amusing enough along with a very capable cast. In fact I agree with another reviewer that the material is strong enough to warrant a longer film. Coming from moneyed studio TCF, I wonder why the oversight. Maybe it was because of the British cast and lack of a marquee name.

An unemployed crew of stage performers pretends to be household servants so they can become a rich stuffy old man's household help. The trouble is can they bring off the impersonation even as their amusing staginess keeps interfering with their act? The comedic potential between clashing personality types remains a rich one

The first part is a fairly mild set-up, comedy-wise, but the last reaches a level of madcap as the crew's real identities begin to show though-- they just can't help themselves. The latter furnishes a lot of chuckles, especially Gardiner's ditzy mugging. On the whole, Fields makes a persuasive chief conniver, while Gardiner and Schaefer get most of the laughs. Wooley, of course, makes a grandiose rich guy, stuffy and superior, a perfect foil for the stagy cut-ups. Then too, McDowall's estranged teen-age son adds a note of poignancy to the proceedings.

Anyway, the premise and cast are a compelling one even if the overall results add up to an under-achiever.

Probably the United Kingdom's most popular entertainer during the Thirties was Gracie Fields. She came over to the USA in the early Forties partly as a hands across the sea goodwill gesture and partly because of a scandal involving her new husband Monty Banks, real name Bianchini. Italians were not real popular over in the UK then, they were as bad as Germans, they never reached that degree of odiousness in the USA during World War II as Germans or Japanese.

In any event the American movie-going public got a real treat to see what our allies on the other side of the pond had been seeing for years. Molly And Me is very typical of the kind of character Fields did over there, the bright and chirpy working class woman with an every ready smile and song who solves everyone's problems. I only wish her work were more available here.

In any event out of work actress Gracie takes a job as a housekeeper for the rich and stuffy Monty Woolley who is expecting his son Roddy McDowall home. He and McDowall are distant from each other and while he's told Roddy that mother is dead, she in the person of Doris Lloyd is very much alive and living a sleazy life, divorced from Woolley. Monty wants to keep Lloyd away from their son.

When she arrives there after being hired by Reginald Gardiner the butler who is also a former thespian, Fields finds wholesale thievery among the staff and sacks the lot of them. She then hires a bunch of her former mates from the stock company she was with. Let's just say a whole lot of problems are solved before the film ends.

Gracie got to work with a few members of the British colony in America in Molly And Me. Yet the film from 20th Century Fox really did have the look and feel of one of her British films.

Despite good performances from Woolley, McDowall, and Gardiner, Molly And Me is totally a Gracie Fields production. I'm just glad this is available for American audiences. Do not miss this or any other of her work should TCM broadcast it.

I noticed when I looked through IMDb that there were two previous movies with the same title. I would assume this 1945 film is a remake, but IMDb doesn't give this information. I do know that there are no reviews for these earlier films and this probably is because the films have been lost to the ravages of time--a common occurrence with early films made on nitrate stock.

Molly is an out of work actress from the London music hall world. Because she needs the job, she uses her acting talent to play the part of a housekeeper and manages to captivate the gruff new master as well as his young and rather lost son. Using Molly's gift for common-sense and pluck, she manages to do a bang-up job--and makes this house truly a home.

This is the second time I've seen this version of "Molly and Me" and I do remember liking it a bit more the first time. Now it isn't that I disliked the movie seeing it again--I just noticed a shortcoming in the tempo of the film when I watched it tonight. I see now that Monty Woolley's gruff character goes from a curmudgeon to a nice guy way too quickly in the film. I think doing the transition a bit more slowly and a bit more realistically would have made for an even better film. BUT, it's hard to fault the movie too much, as it's a pleasant little musical comedy--a sweet sort of film they just don't make any more but that they made so well back in the old days. Plus, Gracies Fields and Woolley were both so marvelous--as were the supporting actors (especially Reginald Gardner). It's hard not to like this nice little film.

An out of work troop of actors take over running a proper English gentleman home. They show the rather harsh man there should be more compassion for the only son he has.

While a lot of the humor is very deadpan, it's an interesting look at how simple the rich life was in the 30's and 40's.

The son Jimmy is played by a very young Roddy McDowall

Here is a whimsical tale of an out-of-work actress and her other also-situated actors and actresses. Tired of playing the starving artist, she lands the role of maid in a house over-running with thieving employees. She single-handedly cleans up the household, and begins to work on her unloving boss. She soon begins to melt his icy heart, and teaches him the value of things (not money, which he knows too well already).

Her actor friends soon must take on the role of fellow servants, and the rest is hilarious. They over-act their positions, and confuse and confound their new boss.