Cluny Brown

1946 "At Last...The Stars You've Wanted - In Each Other's Arms!"
7.4| 1h40m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 02 June 1946 Released
Producted By: 20th Century Fox
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Amateur plumber Cluny Brown gets sent off by her uncle to work as a servant at an English country estate.

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Reviews

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.
Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.
Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
precinct3035 Maybe some day movie execs will realize that Americans can and do appreciate dry humor and witty dialog. That we do appreciate movies that deal with eccentric individualists rising above class inequities. I really don't see that Great Britain or Spain are more open minded to these issues. But in the meantime, good luck finding this film. It appears to only be available in the PAL format. :-/ I really love Cluny Brown, and it infuriates me that it is not available for sale in NTSC. Maybe some day. But it definitely is one of Ernst Lubitsch's better films if you can find a copy.
Alex da Silva Cluny Brown (Jennifer Jones) is sent to a country estate to act as a maid. However, she'd rather be a plumber. She strikes up an alliance with Adam Belinski (Charles Boyer) while finding love with shopkeeper Mr Wilson (Richard Haydn). Is this really the life for Cluny.....? This film is funny. Charles Boyer and Jennifer Jones are two likable lead characters, but it is Richard Haydn who steals the comedy limelight. He is one of those characters that are so awful that they become fascinating. Watch how he proudly shows Jones a map of his life with his birthplace and his place of work heavily marked up, and the scene where he plays his harmonium with a sudden change of pace that is totally unsuitable for the moment. He also makes speeches in Latin. He is basically funny whenever he is on screen. Jones has funny moments as well - watch how she enthusiastically bashes various pipes with a hammer in the name of plumbing while continuing to make conversation. If there is a downside, it is in the character of Andrew (Peter Lawford) who seems to be unpleasant. Lawford doesn't seem to be able to do comedy. Betty (Helen Walker) is also unpleasant but she does at least manage to portray a comical character. Mrs Wilson (Una O'Connor) is just on the wrong side of annoying - she never speaks, she just clears her throat and it becomes tiresome. In contrast, the supporting characters of housekeeper Mrs Maille (Sara Allgood) and the butler Syrette (Ernest Cossart) are very funny in their desire to be nothing but servants.It's a funny film that is worth keeping to watch again.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU That's a funny comedy that takes England as the target of its humor, the England of 1938 and what's more the aristocracy and their twisted class relations with their servants. It is humorous by the way it shows how an Eastern European can easily trap the aristocrats in 1938 with the sound of Prague, some good manners and a little bit of anti-nazism. That Adam Belinski is able to charm these English aristocrats, especially the son who wants to go and fight against Hitler, and his parents who do not even ask a question, or hardly. That Czech refugee is able to live on that noble family for a while before leaving for America along with the maid who arrived the same day as him and he had met in London before. The comedy is funny because that girl, who is not an aristocrat, far from it, does all the mistakes you can imagine English etiquette is going to frown upon severely. She pretends to be a plumber and she repairs some toilet or washstand in a jiffy in front of a middle-class family, their guests and the pharmacist who was getting enamored. The result is the departure of all the guests, after the departure of the pharmacist's mother, and then she is practically rejected. She does not know what class differences are. She will of course be captured by the Czech refugee and taken to America where he is going to become a popular writer and she will finally be away from silly class distinctions. It is funnily absurd and the Lord and his Lady are just passé and old-fashioned, quaint is probably the word if we want to remain nice. Lubitsch takes great pleasure at showing how silly such class-distinctions are. The whole comedy is more humorous than really funny and that humor always remains polite, even at times mundane, though in the light American way.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID
David (Handlinghandel) I would put "Desire" ahead of this. He directed some of it. But of movies for which Lubitsch got sole directories credit, this charming tale is my favorite.Charles Boyer is delightful. Richard Haydn is hilarious as the stuffy pharmacist who woos the title character.And as the title character, Jennifer Jones is lovely and very funny, in just the subtle way the script calls for. She was again to show her comic skills in "Beat The Devil." There she is an outright scream. Based on just these two performances, she must be counted as one of screen history's most adroit comediennes -- though her career generally took her in very different directions.The only part of "Cluny Brown" that makes me uncomfortable is the insertion of jokes about Nazism in a comedy. Yes, "To Be Or Not To Be" is built around that but "Cluny Brown" is a softer movie. It is a sort of drawing room comedy with some racy undertones. The plumbing: OK, it was and still is unusual for a woman to be a plumber. But this is about sex and class. (In a way, it is a slighter "Rules of the Game.") I don't care for the meanness in much of Lubitsch. Certainly he was a beautiful craftsman. But no matter how often I watch "Trouble In Paradise," I can't seem to like it."Cluny Brown" is filled with enormously likable characters. Buffoons too, but they aren't evil. It's one-of-a-kind -- and it's very funny and enormously charming.