Movie Monday: Cluny Brown

 

Movie Monday: Cluny Brown

“A free-spirited parlor maid and a Czech refugee surprise

an English village with their unconventional ways.”

~IMDb~

German American director Ernst Lubitsch was known and well-respected in Hollywood for his “comedy of manners” films – satirical comedies that question and comment upon the manners and social customs of a sophisticated, artificial society (Wikipedia) much like Jane Austen did with her novels. Cluny Brown is Lubitsch’s final film, and it’s a classic screwball comedy. Two sources referred to it as effervescent, a great description.

The movie features Jennifer Jones, a prolific actress who has been largely forgotten, as Cluny Brown, and Charles Boyer as Adam Belinski, a political refugee. Cluny’s uncle is not happy with her unladylike behaviors and arranges for her to work as a parlor maid in the country house of Sir Henry Carmel. It’s not long before she is attracted to Belinski, but she difficulties abound because

she is already seeing someone – a “stuffy chemist.” All sorts of shenanigans occur, including a scene during which Cluny fixes the plumbing at her boyfriend’s house, horrifying his mother, a social diva. More confusion and chaos before she gets her happily ever after with Adam.

Cluny Brown is based on the novel by English novelist Margery Sharp who also wrote The Rescuers.
An author of more than two dozen adult novels, fourteen children’s books, four plays, two mysteries, and many short stories, Margery got her start with pieces in Punch, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar and Ladies’ Home Journal. Cluny Brown was written in 1944 while she was working as an Army Education Lecturer.

Many of the actors in the film made the transition from stage or silent movies to “talkies,” and by the mid 1940s were doing well as character actors: Reginald Owens, C. Aubrey Smith, Ernest Cossart, Florence Bates, and Una O’Connor. The movie also stars a very young Peter Lawford. Critics gave high praise such as the New York Times that said, “a delectable and sprightly lampoon,” and “among the year’s most delightful comedies.” Variety was equally complimentary with “Cluny Brown is in the best Lubitsch tradition of subtle, punchy comedy, and his two stars make the most of it. It is a satire on British manners, with bite and relish.”

Have you seen this classic?

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Eye of the Beholder: An Apron Strings Tea Tale (Releasing June 30, 2026)

Shunned for his appearance, a disfigured veteran encounters acceptance and love where he least expects it.

Left with physical and emotional scars after the Great War, Hank Drake has been shunned by polite society as the Ugly Duckling. Fine by him. He’d much rather be alone. Until he meets the kind proprietress of a tea stand at New York’s World’s Fair who isn’t repulsed by his appearance. Can he hope for acceptance…or even love?

Grace Sutton has no interest in marrying and is tired of her parent’s snide comments that she’s still single on the eve of her 40th birthday. After she loses her job thanks to budget cuts, she decides it’s time to follow her dream of feeding others. Armed with Mrs. Canfield’s cookbook, she opens a refreshment stand at the World’s Fair unaware how one man will turn her life upside down and upset the apple…er, tea cart.

Pre-Order Link: https://amzn.to/3Pz88KO

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluny_Brown
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038419/
https://www.criterion.com/films/28564-cluny-brown
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cluny-brown-1946

Photo Credits:

Movie Poster: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12521988

Movie Still 1: Twentieth Century Fox

Movie Still 2: Twentieth Century Fox