Cluny Brown

Cluny Brown (1946) is Ernst Lubitsch's final completed comedy, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Set in England on the eve of war, it follows a working-class girl who keeps wandering into rooms where her class says she doesn't belong.

Cluny is a London plumber's niece with an unladylike itch to fix pipes — a small scandal in polite society. Packed off to serve as a maid at a country estate, she crosses paths with Adam Belinski, a Czech refugee drifting from one wealthy host to the next and saying the things everyone else swallows. Charles Boyer and Jennifer Jones play the mismatched pair, steering through social blunders toward something warmer.

Lubitsch filmed English manners with the wry distance of an émigré who finds stiff-upper-lip etiquette quietly ridiculous. Released a year before his death, it's among his gentlest pictures — no spectacle, just talk, timing and a raised eyebrow. Ideal if you like vintage Hollywood comedy where wit does the heavy lifting. Stream Cluny Brown (1946) online on iFILM.