Cluny Brown

Star Review

It’s tempting to accuse Cluny Brown of being a masterpiece. That famous Lubitsch touch is much in evidence – this is pitch-perfect comedy, brimming with joy. The title character (Jones) is an impulsive, working class free-spirit who doesn’t know her place; not, perhaps, ideal qualifications for a parlour maid at an English country house, which is where she finds herself after some unscheduled plumbing.

Luckily, the coincidences that blew her there contrive to bring a free-loading political refugee, Professor Berlinski (Boyer), there too. The honoured guest has as much regard for social conventions as Cluny. It’s not long before an unlikely love affair begins.

Lubitsch has great fun teasing polite society – its manners and its earnest young men – but it’s the sheer comic invention that impresses most. It’s the sign of a true master that none of the (plentiful) jokes feels cheap or contrived – the laughs emerge from the (mis)behaviour of the characters and Lubitsch controls them brilliantly.

This was the last film Ernst Lubitsch completed; to watch it is to know why he’s so revered.

James Oliver on 6th May 2008

View all 34 of James Oliver’s reviews

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Film Description

Ernst Lubitsch's swansong Cluny Brown is satire at its most engaging, gently poking fun at the snobbery that existed within English society in the 1930s. Tongues start wagging when a plumber's niece breaks from convention and teams up with an intellectual Czech refugee. Won't somebody please think of the children?

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DVD Extras

• Trailer
• Booklet.

Film Details

Cast

Jennifer Jones, Peter Lawford, Helen Walker, Una O'Connor, Sara Allgood

Technical Details