Watch Piccadilly Jim For Free

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Jim (Robert Montgomery) is an artist and his father (Frank Morgan) a real lady's man. When the father falls for a rich society woman, her family turns out to be very snooty and condescending. Jim is infuriated and responds by creating a series of cartoons lampooning these jerks--and the series becomes VERY popular. However, when Jim meets Ann, he's smitten by her and is then shocked to learn she's from this same snooty family. So, Jim decides to stop doing these wildly popular cartoons and intends to keep his profession from Ann. To do so, he makes up a wild pack of lies...and has his butler (Eric Blore) pose as his father since they already dislike Jim's real father since the father is JUST an actor! Will Jim be able to keep this secret from Ann forever? And, if she learns, what will happen to their relationship? And why does Father show up...in disguise and with a thick German accent?!In many ways, this film must have inspired the wonderful Errol Flynn film "Footsteps in the Dark". In this other film, Flynn lampoons society with his stories and all of these rich swells hate him...not realizing he's one of them himself! Both films are quite clever and worth seeing. Goofy, fun and the sort of movie they unfortunately don't make any more.

P.G. Wodehouse is best remembered for his creation of the unflappable butler Jeeves in those Bertie Wooster stories. In Piccadilly Jim, Wodehouse creates another butler character Bayliss here played by the slightly more flappable Eric Blore who does save the situation for his employer Robert Montgomery the notorious London cartoonist Piccadilly Jim. Of course not quite in the way he intended.Piccadilly Jim is your very typical Wodehouse story, a comedy of manners and satire of the upper and middle classes. In this one however we Americans get a bit of a going over for our pretensions and crass commercialism in the persons of the Pett family.With whom Montgomery and his father Frank Morgan get involved, Montgomery in an effort to help Morgan. It seems as though Frank would like to settle down and marry Billie Burke, but the grande dame of the family, aunt Cora Witherspoon won't hear of it. Montgomery dives into the situation and romances sister Madge Evans who is about to marry a title in the person of dull and dishwater Ralph Forbes. But his instincts as a cartoonist take over and he finds a lot of material for satire in the doings of the Pett family. So much so that they feel they have to leave London where they are vacationing and had back across the pond. Of course Montgomery, Morgan, and Blore follow along on the same ocean liner.One thing about Piccadilly Jim is that it is so perfectly cast. Just the names of the cast and the roles described and you know exactly what you are in for. This film is a great example of the studio contract system at its best, the studio had all or most of these people under contract to MGM and they just got dropped into roles perfectly suited to the image that MGM had created for them.Robert Montgomery though American with his stage training and diction fits right into a Wodehouse English role without missing a beat. And Wodehouse's wit and eye for characters and caricature is as sharp as ever. Piccadilly Jim holds up remarkably well after over 70 years and the film is a great introduction to P.G. Wodehouse.

Supporting players Cora Witherspoon and Eric Blore steal the show in this funny 1936 film.A guy, (Robert Montgomery)who is a cartoonist and his father, a Shakespearian actor, who hasn't played Shakespeare in 20 years, (a very funny Frank Morgan) vie for the attention of two women.Morgan is after Billie Burke, from a wealthy family, who is a plain ordinary lady. The trouble is her sister, Nesta, played with an aristocratic humor by Witherspoon. She sees Morgan as a fortune hunter and tries to end the liaison. Montgomery starts a cartoon series based on the family which is soon a hit throughout England. Little does her know that the girl he is after is the niece of Witherspoon.There's a ship-board romance to America. Morgan dresses up as a European aristocrat to impress Witherspoon and her family. Further complications leads him to have the butler, Blore, play his father.The ending is predictable but it's funny to see how things entangle in this screwball comedy of 1936.

I am becoming a Robert Montgomery fan as I see more of his movies. As an actor who made most of his films in the 30's he is largely forgotten today compared with actors who kept making films into the fifties like Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. However he is a fine natural actor, a very good comedian and an altogether charming leading man. His specialty is the warm-hearted, well-mannered and slightly tipsy gentleman in evening clothes and he doesn't disappoint in this film. He pursues the girl with an admirable single-mindedness and belief in the inevitability of her eventual reciprocation.The film has other pleasures, most notably the presence of Eric Blore as the gentleman's gentleman. This delightful actor is one of the great funny-men of this era. Also in fine form are Frank Morgan, as the ham actor who impersonates a Hungarian Count, Cora Witherspoon as an overbearing society woman, Billy Burke, Grant Mitchell and Robert Benchley as, what else, a lush. Truly a smorgasbord of character acting.The plot is interesting enough to hold our attention and the little snippets of caricature and thirties-style newspaper comic strip are fun.The only slight disappointment is Madge Evans as the ingénue, who plays it straight and is no match for the sublime Montgomery. All in all an enjoyable interlude.