''Thank You, Jeeves!'' is a 1936

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

directed by

Arthur Greville Collins Arthur Greville Collins (September 5, 1896 - September 1, 1980) was a British-born film director. Career Collins was born in London, and began directing for the stage, including productions of ''Fata Morgana'', ''No Man's Land'', and ''Tarnish'' ...

, written by Stephen Gross and

Joseph Hoffman Joseph Hoffman (1909–1997) was an American screenwriter.Shelley p.228 Biography Hoffman began his career with a bang as a screenwriter in the mid-1930s and was installed as a junior screenwriter at 20th Century Fox. He is credited with wri ...

, and starring

Arthur Treacher Arthur Veary Treacher (, 23 July 1894 – 14 December 1975) was an English film and stage actor active from the 1920s to the 1960s, and known for playing English types, especially butler and manservant roles, such as the P.G. Wodehouse valet c ...

Virginia Field Virginia Field (born Margaret Cynthia Field; 4 November 1917 – 2 January 1992) was a British-born film actress. Early years An only child, born in London, her father was Sir John Field. He was the judge of Leicester County Court Circuit. H ...

David Niven James David Graham Niven (; 1 March 1910 – 29 July 1983) was a British actor, soldier, memoirist, and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Major Pollock in ''Separate Tables'' (1958). Niven's other roles ...

Lester Matthews Arthur Lester Matthews (6 June 1900 – 5 June 1975) was an English actor. In his career, the handsome Englishman made more than 180 appearances in film and on television. He was erroneously credited in later years as Les Matthews. Matthews pla ...

Colin Tapley Colin Edward Livingstone Tapley (7 May 1909 – 1 December 1995) was a New Zealand actor in both American and British films. Born in New Zealand, he served in the Royal Air Force and an expedition to Antarctica before winning a Paramount Pictur ...

and John Graham Spacey. It was released on October 4, 1936, by

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

Plot

Bertie Wooster is a frivolous fop, whose insistence on planning a holiday in the French seaside resort of

Deauville Deauville () is a commune in the Calvados department, Normandy, northwestern France. Major attractions include its harbour, race course, marinas, conference centre, villas, Grand Casino, and sumptuous hotels. The first Deauville Asian Film Fes ...

prompts his erudite manservant Jeeves to give his notice, declaring he will leave in the morning as he is tired of extricating Bertie from disastrous holiday romances. That night, as heavy rain falls, a mysterious young woman enters Bertie's London flat, carrying half of some secret plans. Bertie immediately has amorous intentions, but Jeeves locks him out of the living room, where the woman is resting. Bertie discovers the woman has a room booked at a country hotel, Mooring Manor. The woman leaves the house under the cover of darkness, to elude two men who are waiting for her outside. The following morning, Bertie and Jeeves set out for Mooring Manor, where they must do battle with criminals posing as Scotland Yard detectives. On the way to the hotel, they pick up a hitch-hiker, a black saxophonist, who later helps them to foil the crooks.

Cast

The film was Niven's first leading role, although he received only third billing after Treacher and Field. *

as Jeeves *

as Marjorie Lowman *

as Bertie Wooster *

as Elliott Manville *

as Tom Brock *John Graham Spacey as Jack Stone *Ernie Stanton as Mr. Snelling *

Gene Reynolds Eugene Reynolds Blumenthal (April 4, 1923 – February 3, 2020) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, and actor. He was one of the developers and producers of the TV series ''M*A*S*H''. Early life Reynolds was born on April 4, 1923, ...

as Bobby Smith * Douglas Walton as Edward McDermott *

Willie Best William Best (May 27, 1913 – February 27, 1962), known professionally as Willie Best or Sleep n' Eat, was an American television and film actor. Best was one of the first African American film actors and comedians to become well kn ...

as Drowsy

Wodehouse vs. the screenplay

Although the film bears the same title as one of P.G. Wodehouse's novels, and the two leading characters are

Jeeves Jeeves (born Reginald Jeeves, nicknamed Reggie) is a fictional character in a series of comedic short stories and novels by English author P. G. Wodehouse. Jeeves is the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Bertie W ...

(played by Treacher) and

Bertie Wooster Bertram Wilberforce Wooster is a fictional character in the comedic Jeeves stories created by British author P. G. Wodehouse. An amiable English gentleman and one of the "idle rich", Bertie appears alongside his valet, Jeeves, whose intelligenc ...

(Niven), the screenplay by Stephen Gross and

bears no similarity to any Wodehouse novel. In a letter to his friend

Guy Bolton Guy Reginald Bolton (23 November 1884 – 4 September 1979) was an Anglo-American playwright and writer of musical comedies. Born in England and educated in France and the US, he trained as an architect but turned to writing. Bolton preferred w ...

, written many years later (15 August 1973), Wodehouse wrote, "They didn't use a word of my story, substituting another written by some studio hack."

Critical reception

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' praised the casting of Niven and Treacher, noting: "Mr Wodehouse must have been one of the fates in attendance at their births, marking them to play the characters he has been writing about these many years." Although it received critical plaudits, it was a B-movie, so it was not widely distributed, being played only as a second feature in selected American cities. It was not screened in the UK because the British government at that time imposed a strict quota on imported films, which meant that B-movies were not shown. Wodehouse was not impressed by Treacher's performance as Jeeves, complaining that he "pulled faces all the time. Awful." He added, "that supercilious manner of his is all wrong for Jeeves." Hollywood film archivist and writer Brian Taves, in his book ''P.G. Wodehouse and Hollywood: Screenwriting, Satires and Adaptations'' (2006), gave a scathing critique of ''Thank You, Jeeves!'' He wrote, "there was scarcely a mistake that was not made in its 56 minutes", adding the humor was forced, and the direction lackluster and unimaginative. Taves claimed the film "so utterly fails in its essential purpose that it is easy to watch the whole picture without so much as cracking a smile." He was particularly critical of the inclusion of black comedian Willie Best as Drowsy the hitch-hiking saxophonist, declaring his scenes represent "the worst type of Hollywood racial humor during the 1930s".

Television release

The film was re-edited for television in 1955, and broadcast in the series ''TV Hour of the Stars'', under the title ''Thank You, Mr Jeeves''.

Sequel

A sequel, ''

Step Lively, Jeeves! ''Step Lively, Jeeves!'' is a 1937 American comedy film directed by Eugene Forde, written by Frank Fenton and Lynn Root, and starring Arthur Treacher as P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves alongside Patricia Ellis, Robert Kent, Alan Dinehart, George Gi ...

'', was released by 20th Century Fox in 1937 with Treacher reprising his role of Jeeves, but without the character of Bertie Wooster. This was because Niven was at the time under contract to Samuel Goldwyn, who typically loaned him out only for a single picture, hence it would have been expensive and difficult to hire him for the sequel. Niven would not appear in another Wodehouse adaptation until he played the titular character in

Uncle Fred Flits By "Uncle Fred Flits By" is a short story by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, which was published in the United States in the July 1935 edition of '' Redbook'', and in the United Kingdom in the December 1935 issue of the ''Strand''. It was inc ...

, an episode of

Four Star Playhouse ''Four Star Playhouse'' is an American anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956. Four Star Playhouse was owned by Four Star International. Its episodes ranged anywhere from surreal mysteries, such as "The Man on the Train", to light comedies ...

in 1955.

References

External links

* {{P. G. Wodehouse 1936 films 1936 comedy films American black-and-white films Films based on works by P. G. Wodehouse American comedy films 20th Century Fox films Films produced by Sol M. Wurtzel Films set in London Films scored by Samuel Kaylin Films directed by Arthur Greville Collins 1930s English-language films 1930s American films