Piccadilly Jim
Piccadilly Jim
NR | 14 August 1936 (USA)
Piccadilly Jim Trailers

Jim's father wants to marry Eugenia, but her sister Netta refuses to allow it. When Jim sees Ann at a club, he falls for her even though she is with Lord Priory. He meets her the next day at the riding path, but she quickly loses him. He searches all over for her, not knowing that his father's hopeful fiancée is her Aunt. As his caricature work suffers as he searches, he is fired from his paper. But he makes a comeback with the comics 'Rags to Riches' which is based upon the Pett's. But this upsets the Pett's so much that they go back to New York, and he follows, being careful not to let them know that he is the one who draws the strip that parodies them.

Reviews
VeteranLight

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

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Pluskylang

Great Film overall

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Claysaba

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

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Abbigail Bush

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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MartinHafer

Jim (Robert Montgomery) is an artist and his father (Frank Morgan) a real lady's man. When the father falls for a rich society woman, her family turns out to be very snooty and condescending. Jim is infuriated and responds by creating a series of cartoons lampooning these jerks--and the series becomes VERY popular. However, when Jim meets Ann, he's smitten by her and is then shocked to learn she's from this same snooty family. So, Jim decides to stop doing these wildly popular cartoons and intends to keep his profession from Ann. To do so, he makes up a wild pack of lies...and has his butler (Eric Blore) pose as his father since they already dislike Jim's real father since the father is JUST an actor! Will Jim be able to keep this secret from Ann forever? And, if she learns, what will happen to their relationship? And why does Father show up...in disguise and with a thick German accent?!In many ways, this film must have inspired the wonderful Errol Flynn film "Footsteps in the Dark". In this other film, Flynn lampoons society with his stories and all of these rich swells hate him...not realizing he's one of them himself! Both films are quite clever and worth seeing. Goofy, fun and the sort of movie they unfortunately don't make any more.

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bkoganbing

P.G. Wodehouse is best remembered for his creation of the unflappable butler Jeeves in those Bertie Wooster stories. In Piccadilly Jim, Wodehouse creates another butler character Bayliss here played by the slightly more flappable Eric Blore who does save the situation for his employer Robert Montgomery the notorious London cartoonist Piccadilly Jim. Of course not quite in the way he intended.Piccadilly Jim is your very typical Wodehouse story, a comedy of manners and satire of the upper and middle classes. In this one however we Americans get a bit of a going over for our pretensions and crass commercialism in the persons of the Pett family.With whom Montgomery and his father Frank Morgan get involved, Montgomery in an effort to help Morgan. It seems as though Frank would like to settle down and marry Billie Burke, but the grande dame of the family, aunt Cora Witherspoon won't hear of it. Montgomery dives into the situation and romances sister Madge Evans who is about to marry a title in the person of dull and dishwater Ralph Forbes. But his instincts as a cartoonist take over and he finds a lot of material for satire in the doings of the Pett family. So much so that they feel they have to leave London where they are vacationing and had back across the pond. Of course Montgomery, Morgan, and Blore follow along on the same ocean liner.One thing about Piccadilly Jim is that it is so perfectly cast. Just the names of the cast and the roles described and you know exactly what you are in for. This film is a great example of the studio contract system at its best, the studio had all or most of these people under contract to MGM and they just got dropped into roles perfectly suited to the image that MGM had created for them.Robert Montgomery though American with his stage training and diction fits right into a Wodehouse English role without missing a beat. And Wodehouse's wit and eye for characters and caricature is as sharp as ever. Piccadilly Jim holds up remarkably well after over 70 years and the film is a great introduction to P.G. Wodehouse.

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ferenc_molnar

Not an easy thing to do but the great screenwriter Charles Brackett (and co) and the director Robert Z. Leonard get the speed, the slightly demented humor and, amazingly enough, the knowing social commentary lying underneath the jokes. There's a line up of superb character actors with Eric Blore giving what must be his greatest "gentleman's gentleman" performance. It's a comic performance that is both delightfully silly and surprisingly complex. When he mistakenly tells his master that he loves him, it's believable on a number of levels. And his terror in encountering America's lack of concern with the British class system is beautifully played. One can quibble with Madge Evans as the leading lady. She's game and likable enough but neither enough of an actress to create ample character shadings for interest nor enough of a movie star to command with a variety of facial expressions. But Robert Montgomery's leading man makes up for the unbalance.

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edwagreen

Supporting players Cora Witherspoon and Eric Blore steal the show in this funny 1936 film.A guy, (Robert Montgomery)who is a cartoonist and his father, a Shakespearian actor, who hasn't played Shakespeare in 20 years, (a very funny Frank Morgan) vie for the attention of two women.Morgan is after Billie Burke, from a wealthy family, who is a plain ordinary lady. The trouble is her sister, Nesta, played with an aristocratic humor by Witherspoon. She sees Morgan as a fortune hunter and tries to end the liaison. Montgomery starts a cartoon series based on the family which is soon a hit throughout England. Little does her know that the girl he is after is the niece of Witherspoon.There's a ship-board romance to America. Morgan dresses up as a European aristocrat to impress Witherspoon and her family. Further complications leads him to have the butler, Blore, play his father.The ending is predictable but it's funny to see how things entangle in this screwball comedy of 1936.

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