Cinema: The New Pictures, Oct. 21, 1957

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My Man Godfrey (Universal). Farce, like souffle, can't be warmed over. Back in 1936, when this piece of fluff came hot from Hollywood, it was crisp and light with the most expensive ingredients (William Powell and Carole Lombard). But a couple of decades have somehow taken the puff out of the stuff. At second serving it looks, as the French say of second servings, a little senile.

The new plot is much the same as the old. A rich young girl (June Allyson) collects a dockside derelict (David Niven), takes a liking to the fellow, and offers him a job as the family butler. To everybody's surprise, he buttles superbly, bottles seldom, and battles tirelessly for the best interests of his employers—a group of people about as easy to live with as a family of full-grown crocodiles. In the end, of course, the butler has the crocodiles eating out of his hand, and in the final frame the charming little beast who found him snaps him up in marriage.

It's an amusing situation—so why isn't it a more amusing picture? Allyson and Niven can hardly be expected to fill the bill with anything like the inspired inanities of which Lombard and Powell were capable. But the real fault seems to lie with Director Henry Koster. who apparently has not learned that even a good joke can be spoiled by bad timing.

Perri (Buena Vista) is a squirrel who, presumably, was walking along the main stem one day, minding her own business, when along came a fellow from the Walt Disney studios and asked her how she would like to be in pictures—not in any old cartoon, but in a brand-new sort of thing called "a true-life fantasy." Assuming that her squeals were intended to signify delight, the fellow promptly popped her into a crate, and away she went bouncing to fame and misfortune.

They gave her the big buildup. In the first days of shooting she was photographed—in Technicolor, of course—peeping through the autumn foliage, splashing in her swimming pool, lounging in her penthouse, peeking roguishly from underneath the rumpled bedclothes. No doubt remembering the animated vermin that made such a popular success as Cinderella's coachman, Producer Disney surrounded her with plenty of cute little "real-life" mice. He also plumped up the supporting cast with the famous bunny brigade, the

Disney equivalent of Mack Sennett's bathing beauties, and added to that the well-known family of skunks. He even permitted Bambi to make a guest appearance in the picture—anyway, when a young buck appears, that's who the narrator says he is.