My Man Godfrey

My Man Godfrey (1936) is a Depression-era screwball comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Gregory La Cava and starring William Powell alongside Carole Lombard. At a fashionable scavenger hunt, socialite Irene Bullock retrieves a "forgotten man" from a city dump and hires him as the family butler. Godfrey turns out to be the calmest, most composed person in a household running entirely on chaos.

The Bullock family gives him plenty to manage. The mother drifts through her own world of amateur theatrics, the father drains a steady supply of alcohol to cope, and sister Cornelia makes it her project to destroy Godfrey before he settles in. Irene, meanwhile, develops feelings she announces with no subtlety at all. Godfrey absorbs everything, says little, and quietly starts rearranging the people around him.

The film picked up six Academy Award nominations across acting categories — something that had not happened before and would not happen again for decades. Powell and Lombard were divorced before shooting began, which makes their chemistry look even more effortless on screen. La Cava keeps the pace tight throughout: ninety-four minutes, no wasted beats. Stream My Man Godfrey (1936) online on iFILM.