William Powell the unflappable. That was his screen persona - established in such hits as The Thin Man (1934). He had a voice like single malt Scotch and a suave manner that seemed at once immensely cultured yet also rough and rude. In the glory days of 1930s romantic comedies, he was a king. William Powell was the 1930s equivalent of Fonzie. He was untouchably cool.

On screen, that is. No man is ever really so unmoved. And in 1938, the off-screen William Powell was in personal and professional turmoil. The love of his life, Jean Harlow, died tragically of renal failure at the age of 26. Still reeling from grief at this loss, Powell found his contract at MGM, the studio that practically made him a star, over. He was adrift, in more ways than one-but he would be called on to put on a happy face for the cameras to play opposite French actress Annabella in her American debut for a one-off romantic comedy made at 20th Century Fox. Almost immediately after completing the film, Powell would be diagnosed with cancer, and spend most of the next two years fighting for his life. That the film in question is even watchable, given such conditions, is a testament to Powell's professionalism.

It was an adaptation of the 1936 Viennese play Jean (a surprising number of Hollywood's romantic comedies in that period came from Austrian and Hungarian theatre). The play had already migrated to Broadway in 1937, where it took the title The Lady Has a Heart and accommodated Vincent Price in the role now destined to be Powell's. That role was Jean, the title character. A note appended to the first screenplay treatment in the studio files indicates that the Fox writing staff were already eyeing another title change: "Jean is a rather Frenchy name and is interchangeably masculine and feminine." Studio chief Darryl Zanuck decided on the new title: The Baroness and the Butler (1938).

The play had obviously been selected on the basis of its thematic similarity to Powell's Oscar®-nominated blockbuster hit My Man Godfrey (1936). Again, Powell is cast as a butler in a situation that turns on the Depression-era gap between the Haves and the Have Nots, although this time the action was relocated to a fantasy vision of Hungary, full of faux-European opulence.

Mixing class-warfare and progressive rabble-rousing with romantic comedies sounds like a dangerous concoction, and one cannot easily imagine the studio moguls in the late 1930s taking such stuff lightly. But the more audiences responded positively to these socially-minded farces, the more Hollywood would keep making them-and William Powell's brilliance in Godfrey, one of the most prominent of the sub-genre, made him an obvious go-to choice for anyone seeking to replicate that formula. He was even in contention to play the male lead in Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka (1939), a role that went to Melvyn Douglas when Powell's cancer-related troubles sidelined him for a few years.

Director Walter Lang had worked his way up the ranks during the silent era. By 1926 he was directing movies-and then he decided to give it up. Lang took a brief hiatus from that career to try his hand at being an expatriate painter in Paris. He soon slunk back to Hollywood with his tail between his legs to resume making comedies, such as the superlative Carole Lombard vehicle Hands Across the Table (1935). By the 1940s and 50s he settled into making lavish Technicolor musicals, of which his last was the mildly unfortunate 1961 swan song Snow White and the Three Stooges (not an unbearably bad movie, but likely not how the director of The King and I (1956) and Desk Set (1957) would like to be remembered).

The production supervisor on the film was another old hand at comedy, Raymond Griffith. In the 1920s, Griffith was a screen clown whose comedies confidently bore comparison to those of Buster Keaton and Charley Chase. However, his acting career had effectively ended by 1927. Any thoughts he may have harbored about trying for a comeback ended as sound rolled in, his weak raspy voice being unfit for talking pictures. He started anew, as a production supervisor, and served in that administrative capacity for many happy years.

As directed by Walter Lang, The Baroness and the Butler opens by introducing not its characters but its settings-three places, each as significant to the plot as any of the humans who live there. The first is the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest, where the rulers rule. Second is the town of Tura, where the ruled live in poverty. Last is Castle Sandor, where the rulers live in prosperity. Then, and only then, is it time to introduce William Powell as Jean, now renamed Johann, the butler to the Prime Minister, Count Sandor (Henry Stephenson). Theirs is a warm relationship: Sandor is a generous old man with a big heart, and his servant seems to genuinely love him. But it is a professional relationship, demarcated by clear class boundaries and strict rules. It may appear to be a form of friendship, but it is a friendship in which one man is forbidden to sit in the presence of the other, all but banned from speaking at all.

So, when it comes to pass that Johann has been elected to serve as a Senator representing the socially progressive opposition party, this relationship is put to the test....well, sort of.

The odd thing about this movie, the thing that keeps it from being great while at the same time providing its main source of interest, is that the improbable central premise is only a loony high-concept on top of which the filmmakers stretch out an even nuttier and less plausible set of additional circumstances.

At Parliament, Johann is a sharp-tongued activist with a take-no-prisoners opposition to Sandor; but he retains his position as butler. The tensions multiply in every direction: these two men admire and respect each other, yet are political foes. And even that respect between them is a source of tension-Sandor's gentle demeanor makes him a beloved public figure, yet he advances regressive and selfish policies for the moneyed set. Johann needs to destroy his master's public image to make any social change. Meanwhile, Sandor agrees with Johann's policies, yet does nothing to help him, and rankles that his butler's public responsibilities are distracting him from his private duties. The Sandor family practically explode with fury at the betrayal, and are horrified to have to think of their butler now as something of a social equal . . . and did I mention this is a romantic comedy?

The romance angle comes from Annabella, as the PM's daughter Katrina. As long as Johann was unambiguously her servant, she flirted with him constantly. Now that he has all these uppity ideas above his station, she sets out to ruin him-but this being a 1930s rom-com, her surface hostility masks a hidden tenderness. In the age of the screwball, combat is courtship.

The Baroness and the Butler doesn't really work, not the way its makers probably intended. It's hard to swallow a serious political message from something so scattershot and farcical, yet it's equally hard to lose yourself in the comic complications when everyone keeps making political speeches. Throughout it all, Powell gives a terrific performance. Whatever was burning away inside him, he appears to be his usual imperturbable self, adroitly juggling the conflicting moods of the crazy plot. Annabella fares less well-her thick French accent and haughty demeanor are appropriate for her character but get in the way of the necessary sexual chemistry she's supposed to be kindling with Powell. One is cool as a cucumber, one is ice-cold, and the combination isn't entirely inviting.

The relationship between Powell and Stephenson is another matter entirely. Here is genuine warmth and humanity, and more rare, a willingness to agree to disagree. In an age where contemporary American political discourse has become alarmingly ugly and vindictive, it is refreshing to spend 82 minutes in the company of two opponents who won't let their political beliefs obscure their friendship.

Director: Walter Lang
Screenplay: Sam Hellman, Lamar Trotti, Kathryn Scola (screenplay); Ladislaus Bus-Fekete (play "Jean"); Melville Baker, George Marion Jr., Allen Rivkin (contributing writer (uncredited))
Cinematography: Arthur Miller; Robert H. Planck (uncredited)
Art Direction: Bernard Herzbrun, Hans Peters
Film Editing: Barbara McLean
Cast: William Powell (Johann Porok), Annabella (Baroness Katrina Marissey), Helen Westley (Countess Sandor), Henry Stephenson (Count Albert Sandor), Joseph Schildkraut (Baron Georg Marissey), J. Edward Bromberg (Zorda), Nigel Bruce (Major Andros), Lynn Bari (Klari - Maid), Maurice Cass (Radio Announcer), Ivan Simpson (Count Dormo).
BW-75m.

by David Kalat

Sources:
Scott Eyman, Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
Roger Bryant, William Powell: The Life and Films, McFarland & Co. 2006.
James Harvey, Romantic Comedy in Hollywood, Da Capo Press, 1998.