THANK YOU, JEEVES (1936)

In London, we meet young playboy Bertie Wooster banging away at a drum kit in his living room, with Jeeves, his manservant—or "gentleman’s gentleman," as he puts it—standing by to replace drumsticks as Bertie tosses them aside in a frenzy. Bertie claims to need adventure in his life, perhaps even "the great adventure," but Jeeves wants to "live a little longer," so he gives notice. That evening, a young woman, whom we see is being followed by two men, comes to Bertie's door in the rain, asking if she can rest a while. Bertie, intrigued, lets her stay and retires to bed, with ever-vigilant Jeeves locking Bertie in his room so he isn't tempted to get romantic with this mysterious woman. At 3 a.m., Jeeves helps the woman leave through the servants' entrance, her pursuers waiting in the rain all night. Bertie finds a telegram indicating that the woman, Marjorie, is meeting a man named McDermott at the Mooring Manor Hotel, and Bertie and Jeeves head off to find her. Eventually we learn that she is in possession of half of a batch of stolen military documents and is meeting McDermott who has the other half. The two men following her the night before introduce themselves to Bertie as Scotland Yard men, but we find out they are actually criminals who are after the documents. Everyone winds up at the hotel where McDermott is missing and Manville, the gang leader, is waiting to get his hands on Marjorie's documents. Of course, Bertie, thinking that the gang are good guys, gets Marjorie in trouble, but with the able assistance of Jeeves, who used to be an amateur boxer, and a hitchhiking Black saxophone player named Drowsy, all is righted and, with Bertie planning his honeymoon with Marjorie, Jeeves once again gives notice.

There are two ways to approach this film. The first is as an adaptation of a P.G. Wodehouse novel or, more to the point, a version of Wodehouse's characters of Bertie and Jeeves. (There is a novel with this title, but the movie only uses two tiny plot strands from it.) Bertie is a rich but bubble-headed bachelor and Jeeves his unflappable valet who has to keep Bertie out of all kinds of trouble, mostly involving women and relatives. As such, this movie is a failure. Starting with the acting, David Niven is exactly right in both looks and demeanor as the likable doofus Bertie Wooster, but Arthur Treacher (pictured with Niven), though physically perfect as Jeeves, is far too bombastic in his delivery of dialogue. I wrote in my notes that he has "too much spunk." His action hero activity in the climax is completely wrong, though it's plausible that Jeeves might have had some boxing experience in his past. The mild troubles that Bertie gets into almost never involve much physical action, and he almost never actually falls for a woman, usually trying to get out of a mistaken entanglement. The opening scene shows some promise—it could have come right out of a Wodehouse story. Unfortunately, with the arrival of Marjorie, the film becomes a spy story with touches of slapstick and romance, and little of the verbal wit of Wodehouse. 

The second way to approach this film is as a spy story with touches of slapstick and romance, and as such, it's not bad. In fact, in the 1960s something like this featuring a civilian getting comically involved with spies and government agencies would have fit in the zeitgeist quite snugly. If, as a Wodehouse fan (as I am), you forget that Niven and Treacher are supposed to be Bertie and Jeeves, you may find yourself liking the two and their brittle chemistry. There's a fun car chase early on and the climax, in secret passages and cellars, is ass-whooping fun, with Bertie chained to a wall and Drowsy stuck in a suit of armor. Speaking of Drowsy, the usual warnings about cultural sensitivities apply to this slow and shuffling Black character, though Willie Best does a decent job popping in and out of the proceedings as needed and has a fun scene with Jeeves teaching him how to play an orchestral march on the sax. Virginia Field is good as Marjorie, but the bad guys, including Colin Tapley and Lester Matthews, are pretty much interchangeable. As I've noted, the Wodehouse wit is almost totally absent; when Bertie walks outside in the morning, he looks up and says, "What’s that bright light?" and Jeeves replies, "The sun probably, sir." That's it for anything even close to the Bertie and Jeeves feel. A sequel was made with Treacher but without Bertie and I don't think I’m up for it. But I can recommend this, with my above caveats. Pictured at left are Field, Niven and Treacher. [YouTube]