Best movie of this year hands down!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

When I read the summary of this film, I immediately thought: This is almost like "My Man Godfrey", all over again. with William Powell again employed as an exemplary butler for part of the film(the first half of the present film, and the last half of the former film.) In both films, Powell has a social conscience, and it's clear he has the potential to rise above his present station, and make a young woman of the household fall in love with him, despite his starchy manner. Although "My Man Godfrey" is much better remembered, I find the two not so different. The main problem I see with this film is the thick French accent of the leading lady: Annabella, which is often virtually unintelligible, this being her first Hollywood film spoken in English. Also, her personality is rather different from that of Carol Lombard, in "My Man Godfrey". By the following year, in "Bridal Suite", her English had considerably improved.Walter Lang, the director, would go on to direct many of Fox's numerous musical romances over the next 2 decades. ...The indomitable Hellen Westley, as Annabella's society mother, often brings measure of humor to her exuberant personality. ...Henry Stephenson plays his usual role as a grandfatherly, tolerant, gentleman, in the part of Count Sandor, Annabella's father and presently prime minister of Hungary(Why Hungary was chosen as the location of this story escapes me).... Joseph Schildkraut played Annabella's Baron husband, until the ending, when Annabella dumps him for Powell..., Lynn Bari who made a career out of playing 'the other woman' or an evil woman, is a maid. She keeps hinting that she would like to have a relationship with Powell, but he only has eyes for Annabella. There's quite a bit of humor here, mostly situational. Powell has been doing some political thinking and organizing behind Stephenson's back, becoming leader of the opposition Social Progressive party. Strangely, Stephenson isn't alarmed about this unprecedented situation. In fact, he rationalizes it as possibly beneficial to his role as Prime Minister. Even when, in parliament, Powell chews up the record of the Conservative party and Stephenson's role in particular, Stephenson doesn't seem too upset. However, Powell claims he's going to maintain his position as the family's butler along with his political role. Soon, it becomes clear that this is an impossible combination to carry out(as any sensible person would immediately see). Hence, Stephenson gently fires him, ending a long tradition of service started by Powell's ancestors. This act induces Annabella to speed up her romantic dallying with Powell, inducing her husband to divorce her, as she wishes.See this charming and funny film at YouTube.

This 1938 film, set in an area soon to come under the sway of the Nazi blitzkrieg, perpetuates a dangerous myth which threatens the survival of humanity even today: that the working class can get along with (and even marry into!) the castle owning ilk. Maybe in some alternate universe Adolf Hitler could have settled down with a nice Jewish girl and raised 8 kids; maybe there Donald Trump would hire more people than he fired; maybe there Michigan would have double the number of auto builders today compared to 35 years ago (in reality, there are 90% fewer people on the line now); maybe there the wealthy officers would perform the trench warfare as peasants looked on from distant bunkers with binoculars; maybe there guys in neck ties would not be sitting at desks scheming so hard to "privatize" the streets we travel, the water we drink, and the air we breathe; maybe there the top 1% who owned one-third of everything would not be so envied by the next 9% who had to split another third of everything among themselves that these bitter greed-heads would not feel so compelled to take away more of the final third from the 90% of us who make up the working class, but WE have to live in the universe of here and now.Go ahead, watch THE BARONESS AND THE BUTLER as pure entertainment, rather than as the actual subversive opiate for the masses that Hollywood has churned out for more than a century. (If movies were "green lit" by real Americans from the working folk, flicks such as THE BARONESS AND THE BUTLER or PRETTY WOMAN would never be made!) Why won't Hollywood tell the truth about the likelihood of a working class lamb lying down peacefully with a top 1% lion? Well, to quote Jack Nicholson, it's because YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH.

To introduce French film star Annabella to American audiences, 20th Century Fox got a European type product as a fitting vehicle for her. And to play the butler who goes to Parliament, Darryl Zanuck obtained the services of William Powell from MGM.Like that other favorite butler role that Powell essayed in My Man Godfrey, Powell is a butler with a social conscience, a fact he keeps hidden from his employers Henry Stephenson, Helen Westley and their daughter Annabella. How he kept secret the fact that his left wing party has nominated him for a seat in the Hungarian Parliament is beyond me. Nevertheless on election eve the family learns that Stephenson will be returned as Prime Minister and Powell will be occupying a seat on the back bench.The Baroness And The Butler is the kind of film that would have been made in any number of European countries, a delightful bit of Frou-Frou that definitely did not have any relation to Hungary in 1938 with Admiral Miklos Horthy running things as a fascist learning military dictator. Those parliamentary elections have about as much relevance as those that were still going on in Nazi Germany where Reichstag elections were dutifully held with only one party being allowed to participate.Still Powell and Annabella are nothing less than charming and capable players and they pull this film through and you can actually enjoy it if you'll completely suspend disbelief. Of course Powell and Annabella are in love, but she's unhappily married to a philandering Joseph Schildkraut. And Schildkraut like Captain O'Shea in Ireland is going to make the scandal make his career. As usual Schildkraut is letter perfect playing the part of an unscrupulous schemer, characteristics he patented at the height of his career.If you're a fan of the stars you'll enjoy The Baroness And The Butler.

A charming movie, in particular for those whose film tastes are simple, requiring clean, wholesome entertainment, certainly something rare on the screen in the 21st Century. Powell was Powell, articulate, debonair, and likable. But this was my first view of Annabella; what a lovely creature; more accurately, stunningly beautiful, at least to me. The cast did well depicting the almost unbelievable etiquette that those of us born in or after WW II just do not understand. I guess this was the objective in the simplistic plots of the time--to bring only a sense of peace and pleasure to audiences in a time (WW II) when such peace and pleasures were thought to probably never exist again. I cannot find a lot of information on Annabella, but she apparently had a long and distinguished film career. Too bad I didn't know about her in my youth. The film is certainly another 'feather in the hat' of a time in films that many of us remember and enjoyed.