My Man Godfrey
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40 free My Man Godfrey trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
My Man Godfrey arrived in 1936, in the depths of the Depression, and turned the gap between rich and poor into one of Hollywood's sharpest comedies. A down-and-out stranger is hired as butler to the Bullocks, a wealthy New York family with more money than sense, and proves to be the only sane person in the house. William Powell and Carole Lombard lead a cast in which even the smallest parts are memorable. This quiz covers the whole story of the film: the plot and its best-remembered scenes, the Bullock household and the people who played them, the director and writers, how the two leads came to be cast, and what happened at the Academy Awards. A few questions follow the film's long afterlife, from later adaptations to the 1957 remake. It is pitched for classic-movie fans, screwball comedy lovers and film-club quiz nights. Some questions are easy if you have seen the film once; others reward anyone who knows the careers of its stars. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01William Powell and Carole Lombard of My Man Godfrey had, until a 1933 split, been what to each other off screen?
Husband and wife
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.
Q 02In My Man Godfrey, which party game sends the Bullock sisters to a shantytown looking for a homeless man?
A scavenger hunt
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.
Q 03What does Godfrey give Irene Bullock in My Man Godfrey when she fakes a fainting spell to win his sympathy?
A cold shower
A cold shower is his cure, and it backfires: Irene takes his loss of temper as proof that he loves her.
Q 04In My Man Godfrey, Carlo, the Bullocks' freeloading protégé, entertains the family by leaping about like which animal?
A gorilla
A gorilla impression is Carlo's party piece, and the role turned Mischa Auer from a screen villain into an Oscar-nominated comic.
Q 05William Powell, the butler of My Man Godfrey, starred opposite Myrna Loy in which series of detective films?
The Thin Man
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.
Q 06Carole Lombard, who played Irene in My Man Godfrey, married which Hollywood leading man in 1939?
Clark Gable
Clark Gable eloped with her to Kingman, Arizona, in March 1939, and the pair became one of the most closely watched couples in Hollywood.
Q 07My Man Godfrey co-writer Morrie Ryskind also scripted A Night at the Opera for which comedy team?
The Marx Brothers
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.
Q 08Shantytowns like Godfrey's home in My Man Godfrey were nicknamed after which president, blamed for the Depression?
Herbert Hoover
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.
Q 09My Man Godfrey is the only film nominated in all four acting categories at the Oscars yet not for which award?
Best Picture
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.
Q 10Gail Patrick, the scheming Cornelia of My Man Godfrey, later became executive producer of which hit TV legal drama?
Perry Mason
Perry Mason ran from 1957 to 1966 with her as the only woman executive producer in prime time; she had once studied law herself.
Q 11At the end of My Man Godfrey, what does Godfrey build on the filled-in city dump to give the homeless men jobs?
A nightclub
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.
Q 12Which British star took William Powell's role as the butler in the 1957 color remake of My Man Godfrey?
David Niven
David Niven already knew the story: in a 1938 broadcast adaptation he had played Tommy Gray, Godfrey's old friend.
Q 13In My Man Godfrey, Tommy Gray recognizes the butler Godfrey as an old classmate from which university?
Harvard
Q 21Which Hollywood studio, famous in the 1930s for its Dracula and Frankenstein horror films, made My Man Godfrey?
Universal
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.
Q 22My Man Godfrey is a landmark of screwball comedy, a genre named after a tricky pitch in which sport?
Baseball
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.
Q 23William Powell of My Man Godfrey was the partner of which 'Platinum Blonde' star when she died suddenly in 1937?
Jean Harlow
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.
Q 14Eugene Pallette, the gravel-voiced father in My Man Godfrey, played which outlaw in 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood?
Friar Tuck
Friar Tuck may be his best-known role, and he played a similar friar in The Mark of Zorro two years later.
Q 15In 1999 My Man Godfrey was named culturally significant and added to which American preservation list?
National Film Registry
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.
Q 16Surviving blooper reels from My Man Godfrey catch Carole Lombard doing what whenever she fluffed a line?
Swearing
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.
Q 17Gregory La Cava, director of My Man Godfrey, began his film career in the 1910s in which line of work?
Animation
Animation was his first trade: William Randolph Hearst hired him to run a cartoon studio that brought the newspaper comic strips to life.
Q 18The 'forgotten man' label pinned on Godfrey in My Man Godfrey echoes a 1932 speech by which politician?
Franklin Roosevelt
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.
Q 19Carole Lombard of My Man Godfrey died in 1942, heading home from a war bond rally, in what kind of accident?
A plane crash
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.
Q 20In My Man Godfrey, what does a vengeful Cornelia Bullock hide under Godfrey's mattress before calling the police?
A pearl necklace
A pearl necklace is the bait, but the police search finds nothing, and her father then tells her the pearls were never insured.
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.
Q 24In My Man Godfrey, which member of the Bullock household warns the new butler Godfrey that butlers there never last?
The maid
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.
Q 25At the end of My Man Godfrey, Tommy Gray sends in which New York official to marry Irene and Godfrey?
The mayor
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.
Q 26Star William Powell and director Gregory La Cava settled a dispute over My Man Godfrey's title role by sharing what?
A bottle of Scotch
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.
Q 27In My Man Godfrey, what does Godfrey quietly buy up and hand back to save Alexander Bullock from ruin?
Shares of stock
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.
Q 28Carole Lombard of My Man Godfrey made her final film opposite Jack Benny in which Ernst Lubitsch wartime comedy?
To Be or Not to Be
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.
Q 29Carole Lombard's My Man Godfrey Oscar bid lost to Luise Rainer in which 1936 musical starring William Powell?
The Great Ziegfeld
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.
Q 30Mischa Auer of My Man Godfrey lost the very first Best Supporting Actor Oscar to which future three-time winner?
Walter Brennan
Walter Brennan won for Come and Get It and took the same award twice more within five years, for Kentucky and The Westerner.