40 Fun Facts About My Man Godfrey

William Powell and Carole Lombard of My Man Godfrey had, until a 1933 split, been what to each other off screen?

Husband and wife from 1931 to 1933, the two stayed such good friends that he would take the part of Godfrey only if she played Irene.

In My Man Godfrey, which party game sends the Bullock sisters to a shantytown looking for a homeless man?

A scavenger hunt has the rich guests racing to bring back oddities, and Irene wins her round by producing Godfrey as a so-called forgotten man.

What does Godfrey give Irene Bullock in My Man Godfrey when she fakes a fainting spell to win his sympathy?

A cold shower is his cure, and it backfires: Irene takes his loss of temper as proof that he loves her.

In My Man Godfrey, Carlo, the Bullocks' freeloading protégé, entertains the family by leaping about like which animal?

A gorilla impression is Carlo's party piece, and the role turned Mischa Auer from a screen villain into an Oscar-nominated comic.

William Powell, the butler of My Man Godfrey, starred opposite Myrna Loy in which series of detective films?

The Thin Man and its five sequels cast him as Nick Charles, and the first of them brought his first Best Actor nomination, two years before Godfrey brought his second.

Carole Lombard, who played Irene in My Man Godfrey, married which Hollywood leading man in 1939?

Clark Gable eloped with her to Kingman, Arizona, in March 1939, and the pair became one of the most closely watched couples in Hollywood.

My Man Godfrey co-writer Morrie Ryskind also scripted A Night at the Opera for which comedy team?

The Marx Brothers also had him to thank for The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers, and he shared a Pulitzer Prize for the musical Of Thee I Sing.

Shantytowns like Godfrey's home in My Man Godfrey were nicknamed after which president, blamed for the Depression?

Herbert Hoover was in office when the slump began, so critics also coined Hoover blankets for old newspapers and Hoover flags for empty pockets turned inside out.

My Man Godfrey is the only film nominated in all four acting categories at the Oscars yet not for which award?

Best Picture was the one big race it missed, even though its director, its writers and four of its actors were all nominated; it won nothing.

Gail Patrick, the scheming Cornelia of My Man Godfrey, later became executive producer of which hit TV legal drama?

Perry Mason ran from 1957 to 1966 with her as the only woman executive producer in prime time; she had once studied law herself.

At the end of My Man Godfrey, what does Godfrey build on the filled-in city dump to give the homeless men jobs?

A nightclub named The Dump rises on the old site, paid for with what was left of the money from Cornelia's pawned jewels, and there are plans to house 50 of the men.

Which British star took William Powell's role as the butler in the 1957 color remake of My Man Godfrey?

David Niven already knew the story: in a 1938 broadcast adaptation he had played Tommy Gray, Godfrey's old friend.

In My Man Godfrey, Tommy Gray recognizes the butler Godfrey as an old classmate from which university?

Harvard is where the two men met, and Godfrey hastily claims he was only Tommy's valet there to keep his wealthy background from the Bullocks.

Eugene Pallette, the gravel-voiced father in My Man Godfrey, played which outlaw in 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood?

Friar Tuck may be his best-known role, and he played a similar friar in The Mark of Zorro two years later.

In 1999 My Man Godfrey was named culturally significant and added to which American preservation list?

National Film Registry selection by the Library of Congress came in 1999, with a citation praising both leads and the black-and-white camerawork of Ted Tetzlaff.

Surviving blooper reels from My Man Godfrey catch Carole Lombard doing what whenever she fluffed a line?

Swearing was her habit when tension rose on the set, to the amusement of the cast, and outtakes of William Powell doing the same survive too.

Gregory La Cava, director of My Man Godfrey, began his film career in the 1910s in which line of work?

Animation was his first trade: William Randolph Hearst hired him to run a cartoon studio that brought the newspaper comic strips to life.

The 'forgotten man' label pinned on Godfrey in My Man Godfrey echoes a 1932 speech by which politician?

Franklin Roosevelt used the phrase for those at the bottom of the economic scale, and Hollywood picked it up almost at once, including in a Gold Diggers of 1933 musical number.

Carole Lombard of My Man Godfrey died in 1942, heading home from a war bond rally, in what kind of accident?

A plane crash on a Nevada mountain killed her at 33; her party had been due to go home by rail, but she wanted to get back faster.

In My Man Godfrey, what does a vengeful Cornelia Bullock hide under Godfrey's mattress before calling the police?

A pearl necklace is the bait, but the police search finds nothing, and her father then tells her the pearls were never insured.

Which Hollywood studio, famous in the 1930s for its Dracula and Frankenstein horror films, made My Man Godfrey?

Universal had to borrow both of its leads from rival studios, because its own contract list ran to little more than Boris Karloff and the cowboy star Buck Jones.

My Man Godfrey is a landmark of screwball comedy, a genre named after a tricky pitch in which sport?

Baseball's screwball breaks the opposite way from every other breaking pitch, and 1930s critics borrowed the word for comedies whose characters behaved just as unpredictably.

William Powell of My Man Godfrey was the partner of which 'Platinum Blonde' star when she died suddenly in 1937?

Jean Harlow was 26 when kidney failure killed her; grief and his own illness then kept Powell off the screen for more than a year.

In My Man Godfrey, which member of the Bullock household warns the new butler Godfrey that butlers there never last?

The maid, Molly, has watched a long line of butlers driven out by the Bullock women's antics, and she ends up nursing a crush on Godfrey herself.

At the end of My Man Godfrey, Tommy Gray sends in which New York official to marry Irene and Godfrey?

The mayor walks in just after Irene has announced that she is moving in, and she leads a startled Godfrey up by the hand to be married.

Star William Powell and director Gregory La Cava settled a dispute over My Man Godfrey's title role by sharing what?

A bottle of Scotch did the trick, but only the director reached the set next morning; Powell wired that they had found the character and lost the actor.

In My Man Godfrey, what does Godfrey quietly buy up and hand back to save Alexander Bullock from ruin?

Shares of stock that Bullock had sold come back to him as a gift: Godfrey bought them with money raised by pawning Cornelia's jewels and selling short.

Carole Lombard of My Man Godfrey made her final film opposite Jack Benny in which Ernst Lubitsch wartime comedy?

To Be or Not to Be, a dark satire on the Nazi takeover of Poland, was still in post-production when she died, and she had top billing over its male lead.

Carole Lombard's My Man Godfrey Oscar bid lost to Luise Rainer in which 1936 musical starring William Powell?

The Great Ziegfeld cast Powell as the Broadway showman Florenz Ziegfeld; Rainer won again the next year, the first performer to take back-to-back Oscars.

Mischa Auer of My Man Godfrey lost the very first Best Supporting Actor Oscar to which future three-time winner?

Walter Brennan won for Come and Get It and took the same award twice more within five years, for Kentucky and The Westerner.

Which future Oscar winner and first wife of Ronald Reagan appears uncredited as a party guest in My Man Godfrey?

Jane Wyman was a teenage bit player at the time; she later won Best Actress for 1948's Johnny Belinda, the first of the sound era to win without speaking a line.

Alice Brady, the dizzy mother of My Man Godfrey, won an Oscar as Mrs. O'Leary in which 1930s disaster film?

In Old Chicago cast her as the owner of the cow said to have started the city's 1871 fire, a year after her nomination for playing Angelica Bullock.

The 1957 remake of My Man Godfrey was shot in color and in which widescreen process first seen in The Robe?

CinemaScope used a special lens to squeeze a wide image onto ordinary film, and 20th Century-Fox brought it out in 1953 to fight the pull of television.

Director Gregory La Cava followed My Man Godfrey with which 1937 film starring Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers?

Stage Door, set in a New York boarding house for would-be actresses, brought him a second directing nomination, and Gail Patrick was in his cast again.

Like My Man Godfrey, which 2013 film about con artists was nominated in all four acting categories yet won no Oscars?

American Hustle went home empty-handed from ten nominations, a year after its director's previous film had also scored in all four acting races.

Which star of Topper, opposite Cary Grant, was the studio's first choice to play Irene in My Man Godfrey?

Constance Bennett was the studio's pick, and Miriam Hopkins was considered too, before William Powell made Carole Lombard's casting his condition for signing.

Which Paramount designer, famed for dressing Marlene Dietrich, came along to costume Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey?

Travis Banton was part of the loan deal that brought Lombard over from her home studio; he made only her gowns, while a designer credited as Brymer dressed the rest of the cast.

My Man Godfrey is based on a 1935 Eric Hatch novel also known by which title, a Manhattan address?

1101 Park Avenue became far better known as My Man Godfrey, and Hatch himself was hired to turn his book into the script with Morrie Ryskind.

My Man Godfrey cameraman Ted Tetzlaff later shot which Alfred Hitchcock spy film starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman?

Notorious came the year before he gave up the camera to direct; earlier he had been Carole Lombard's favoured cameraman, photographing ten of her films.

Which English novelist, reviewing My Man Godfrey for The Spectator in 1936, called most of the film acutely funny?

Graham Greene praised the party sequence as perhaps the wittiest and noisiest of the year, but felt the ending left the film's social conscience confused.