The First Screen Jeeves

Plum L in es The quarterly journal of The Wodehouse Society Vol. 22 No. 2 Summer 2001 The First Screen Jeeves By Brian Taves Brian Taves (PhD, University of Southern California) is a film archivist at the Library of Congress and author of three books. t the end o f 1935,20th detective, and Chan was A Century-Fox bought the studio’s most popular the film rights to Thank “star” after Shirley Ton, Jeeves (along with a Temple. one-year option on the Like Chan, Jeeves had other stories) and the right been brought to the no to make other films cen tice of the American read tered around Jeeves. Look ing public in The Saturday ing for potentially pro Evening Post. The Jeeves lific—and profitable — film series seems to have properties, the studio was been launched on what interested in any character was perceived as a sure who seemed to have the bet, casting Arthur potential to lure filmgoers Treacher, known for play to film after film, no less ing butler roles, as the fa than a modern television mous literary butler. series. Earlier in the year, However, while the Chan Fox’s merger with 20th series was cast and pre Century had enhanced the sented in a manner conso A studio photo of the three principals in the first Jeeves film: studio’s status, and a CCB” nant with Biggers’s liter David Niven, Virginia Field, and Arthur Treacher. unit was organized under ary creation, the Jeeves Sol Wurtzel, who had a $6,000,000 annual budget for films revealed no sense of the situations and character pat 24 “Bs” per year. These pictures averaged between terns that had made Jeeves successful in magazine stories $150,000 and $200,000 apiece in cost, involved two to and books. three months o f preparation and three weeks of shoot There was scarcely a mistake that was not made in ing, with access to the top equipment, sound stages, and the 56-minute opening movie, Thank You, Jeeves. In dis technical personnel shared with the studio’s biggest bud pensing with the plot o f the novel, and any other Jeeves get films. Although “Bs” were typically intended for story, screenwriters Joseph Hoffman and Stephen Gross screening on the bottom half of double hills, many of die substituted a bizarre combination o f incidents inter series “Bs” focused on a character, had especially high pro spersed in an incredibly unlikely account o f Bertie and duction standards, and were reliable attractions for mov Jeeves becoming involved with espionage. The attempts iegoers. Fox had notable success with its Charlie Chan at humor were either forced, or, in the case of a few lines series, bringing to the screen the late Earl Derr Biggers’s that might have been amusing, were presented in such a way as to conceal any comedic potential. Even worse was knows just the place—Mooring Manor Inn. By the logic the lackluster, unimaginative direction of Arthur Greville o f Hollywood, this hotel is, o f course, the headquarters Collins, who was seemingly wholly unaware of the de of the spies and just the place Marjorie will turn up next. mands o f a comedic presentation. Thank You, Jeeves so When the spies introduce themselves to Bertie as men utterly fails in its essential purpose that it is easy to watch from Scotland Yard, he accepts them at face value, sur the whole picture without so much as cracking a smile. rendering Marjorie (an actual crime-fighter) to them. In Only the opening, as Bertie loudly plays the drums the final scene of fisticuffs in the hotel basement, Bertie to the accompaniment o f music on the radio, recalled the fights by using medieval artifacts lying about while Jeeves milieu of the Wodehouse stories. Subsequently, a mys reveals himself to be a former amateur boxing champion. tery woman, Marjorie Lowman (Virginia Field), who is Making amends for his earlier errors, Bertie finally has followed by agents, knocks at the door. Bertie, proud of become worthy of Marjorie’s love, although Jeeves must his chivalrous ancestors and hoping to emulate them, of accept that Bertie’s new bride has other plans for a fers her shelter, but she disappears in the night. Jeeves, gentleman’s gendeman. after threatening to give notice, persuades the bored Ber The most lamentable addition to Thank You, Jeeves is tie that he should take a vacation in the country, and he the black comedian Willie Best as the saxophone-playing “Drowzy,” a wandering minstrel performer. Best was sometimes billed as “Sleep cn’ Eat” and his role was strongly reminiscent of Stepin Fetchit, a popular comedian who was under contract at Fox. Today these scenes recall the worst type of Hollywood racial humor during die 1930s. In one dreadful scene, Jeeves tries to teach Best a Brit ish march, which Best turns into swing. The mutual pounding of their feet breaks through a trap door into the basement where Bertie and Marjorie are held prisoner. Treacher is appropriately cast, and his Jeeves, according to publicity suggestions in the Ameri can pressbook, is intended as a model of social grace who is appalled by any breach of etiquette or improper behavior. However, on screen he is excessively irritable and petulant, lacking the adaptability o f the Wodehouse creation. More important, there is none of Jeeves’s trademark Machiavellian cleverness in die Treacher charac terization, simply an annoyingly starched and stuffy, standard-issue English buder. David Niven made an acceptable Bertie, ef fectively capturing his comic perplexity. Niven later wrote of how, at the time, he was getting together “ a whole repertory of looks that passed for acting, from boggling my eyes to furrowing my brow.” Although Niven was only given third billing, after both Treacher and Field, Thank You, Jeeves was one of several pictures at the time that helped to raise Niven toward star status. He was then under contract to Samuel Goldwyn, who typically loaned Niven out only for a single pic ture. Hence, obtaining Niven for a return en gagement as Bertie would have been a problem atic and expensive proposition. In marrying Samples of posters and other displays offered to theater owners for Bertie, Thank You, Jeeves not only makes it pos Thank You, Jeeves. Note the emphasis on Jeeves, rather than Bertie. sible not to hire Niven for subsequent movies 2 Plum Lines Vol. 22 No. 2 Summer 2001 in the series, but also seems to be part of a strategy to laughs—modest achievements, but significant improve eliminate half o f the Wodehouse team in adapting the ments over Thank You, Jeeves. However, Step Lively, Jeeves stories to die screen, judging Bertie to be a dispensable was still far from the necessary quality to sustain a series. character. Whereas Treacher’s Jeeves in Thank You, Jeeves had Niven would later make an important contribution been a fussy, schoolmarm-type figure, in Step Lively, Jeeves to Wodehouse on die screen when he proved an ideal he is naive, with the brain o f Bertie Wooster. Indeed, the Uncle Fred in two television versions of “Uncle Fred Flits “Rupert Hedgewick” (not Wodehouse’s “Reginald”) By” in 1953 (for Hollywood Opening Night and Four Star Jeeves o f Step Lively, Jeeves is almost the result of a merger Playhouse). The latter survives, and is one of the most suc of Bertie and Jeeves. The Jeeves name and figure remain, cessful transpositions of Wodehouse to the screen, which but he has the Wooster brain, perpetually befuddled and Niven produced with Roy Kellino directing. confused. The incidents o f the short story provide a perfect Unlike Thank You, Jeeves, in Step Lively, Jeeves there are amount o f plot for a half-hour small screen presentation, a few incidents from the stories. Jeeves scolds another and each member of die litde-known supporting cast was butler for his poor choice of clothes for his master, mak ideal. The segment fully captured the zaniness of die origi ing far wiser suggestions for color and design coordina nal while maintaining fidelity to die source, with the tele tion. After joining a celebration, going on a bender, and play by Oscar Millard using much of the Wodehouse dia traveling by bicycle, Jeeves awakes with a hangover. He is logue. given a pick-me-up: a scene perfecdy bringing to life the Thank You, Jeeves, a 1936 release, was followed the before, during, and after o f the drink, vividly showing its next year by Step Lively, Jeeves, which is not ostensibly effect—except that its larger purpose is gone. Whereas the based on any Wodehouse work, and admits to being an pick-me-up was in Wodehouse’s world a demonstration original creation. (Thank You, Jeeves was retitled Thank of its inventor’s knowledge, as Jeeves administered it to You, M r Jeeves when it was re-edited for television release Bertie, in Step Lively, Jeeves the concoction is the brain in 1955 as a 45 minute episode of the series T V Hour o f the child o f a minor character. Stars, hosted by John Conte.) While critics were unac Jeeves has far less time on screen than he had in Thank countably kind to Thank You, Jeeves, they were too harsh You, Jeeves, and the idea for Step Lively, Jeeves seems to have on the sequel. The first picture in the series had been so been conceived less as a Jeeves vehicle than a comedy in bad that ironically the second was an improvement; diere which any one of many characters could have portrayed was nowhere to go but up.

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