William Powell ~ 23 Films

William Horatio Powell was born 29 July 1892 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1907, he moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri, where he graduated from Central High School in 1910. The Powells lived just a few blocks away from the Carpenters, whose daughter Harlean also found success in Hollywood as Blonde Bombshell Jean Harlow, although she and Powell did not meet until both were established actors. After school, Powell attended New York City's American Academy Of Dramatic Arts. Work in vaudeville, stock companies and on Broadway followed until, in 1922, aged 30, playing an evil henchman of Professor Moriarty in a production of Sherlock Holmes, his Hollywood career began. More small parts followed and he did sufficiently well that, in 1924, he was signed by Paramount Pictures, where he stayed for the next seven years. Though stardom was elusive, he did eventually attract attention as arrogant film director Lev Andreyev in The Last Command (1928) before finally landing his breakthrough role, that of detective Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case (1929).

Unlike many silent actors, the advent of sound boosted Powell's career. His fine, urbane voice, stage training and comic timing greatly aided his successful transition to the talkies. However, not happy with the type of roles he was getting at Paramount, in 1931 he switched to Warner Bros. His last film for them, The Kennel Murder Case (1933), was also his fourth and last Philo Vance outing. In 1934 he moved again, to MGM, where he was paired with Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama (1934). It was the making of him - arguably, of them both. For while Vance had made Powell a star, it was another detective, Nick Charles, that made him famous. The Thin Man (1934) not only earned the actor a first Academy Award nomination but was also the first of a highly popular six film series starring Powell as Nick and Loy as his dedicated wife and helpmeet Nora. Powell starred in 1936's epic Best Picture winner The Great Ziegfeld, confirming that he could play any role with authority, whether comedy, thriller or drama. He received a second Academy Award nomination for My Man Godfrey, also in 1936, and looked set for great things. But his highly successful career took a double blow in 1937 - see below - which set it and him back. Although through the 1940s his output slowed, in 1947 he received his third Academy Award nomination for his role as cantankerous Clarence Day Senior in Life With Father. His last film was 1955's Mister Roberts with Henry Fonda, Jimmy Cagney and Jack Lemmon. Despite numerous entreaties to return to the screen, Powell refused all offers, happy in his retirement. In 1915, Powell married Eileen Wilson (1894-1942) with whom he had his only child. The couple were amicably divorced in 1930. Powell's son, also William, became a television writer and producer before a period of ill health led to his suicide in 1968. In June 1931, Powell's second marriage was to actress Carole Lombard. This also ended in divorce in 1933, though they too remained on good terms, even starring together three years later in screwball hit My Man Godfrey. Powell was devastated when he learned of her death, aged 33, in a January 1942 plane wreck. In 1935, Powell made Reckless with Jean Harlow, and the two became very close. The following year they were reunited on screen, with Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy in Libeled Lady. In June 1937, whilst filming Saratoga with Clark Gable, Harlow fell ill, was admitted to hospital and quickly died as a result of kidney failure. Powell, in the middle of filming Double Wedding with Myrna Loy, was greatly upset and had to take six weeks off to deal with his grief. When that film was done, he did not make another for a year. This may have been in part because, also in 1937, he was diagnosed with rectal cancer, which responded successfully to experimental radium treatment. On 6 January 1940, three weeks after they first met, Powell married actress Diana "Mousie" Lewis. They remained together for forty-four years, residing primarily in Palm Springs, California, until Powell's death, aged 91, in 1984.

William Powell: [speaking in 1929] I have always been forced to stand on my acting ability. I haven't a personality such as Jack Gilbert's, for instance, that attracts women and makes them like me for myself. When I am on the screen I must make them forget me entirely and think only of my acting. My friends have stood by me marvellously in the ups and downs of my career. I don't believe there is anything more worthwhile in life than friendship. Friendship is a far better thing than love, as it is commonly accepted. I do not hold that, because the author did a bad job of writing, the player need trump it with the same kind of acting. When I go into a picture I have only one character to look after. If the author didn't do him justice, I try to add whatever the creator of the part over-looked. Treat any and all drugs with respect, for most of the time they are stronger than you are. I have never gone into a picture without first studying my character-isation from all angles. I make a study of the fellow's life and try to learn everything about him, including the conditions under which he came into this world, his parentage, his environment, his social status, and the things in which he is interested. Then I attempt to get his mental attitude as much as possible. There is more money in being liked by an audience than in being disliked by it. The biggest thing about movie audiences is the sym-pathy they give characters on the screen. But the art of acting and the talent of selecting what one will act are divorced qualities. Have you noticed that the people who actually make the laws, the people in power, never make laws for themselves? A word of advice: If you get the choice between the upper and lower bunks in a cell, choose the lower. Prisons do not turn off their lights at night, and I spent a sleepless night, without a mattress, with a five-hundred-watt bulb shining directly into my eyes. If a man is to be a man, a free spirit unto himself, he must arm himself not only with weapons but with ideals and concepts he is willing to die for.

INTERFERENCE (1928)

Interference - Paramount's first all talking feature film as well as Powell's sound debut - is a minor movie milestone. Based on a stage play by Harold Dearden and Roland Pertwee adapted by Hope Loring, it was, like most of the early talkies, a huge hit - and, given its compelling tale of bigamy, dual identity, blackmail and murder presented via impressive turns from Clive Brook, Evelyn Brent (above) and Powell in particular, it's not hard to see why. Theatrical and necessarily rudimentary, perhaps, but entertaining too. 83 minutes. IMDb: Interference showed what would happen to cinema in the next couple of years - the fluidity of the silent camera was bought to a static grinding halt as movies were filmed in one or two rooms, with characters being grouped around tables and vases of flowers where microphones could be hidden ... What appealed to contemporary critics most was the cultured way the actors spoke. This was the first talkie done in "the drawing room manner" - no "dese, dem and dose" vernacular. Boy, how sick everyone would soon be of "teacup dramas" / Not a great film or even a very good one, but, for a large chunk of filmgoers, the birth of a new art form, so historically important ... Powell is very watchable until he does his drunk scene. Unfortunately, I've seen all the Thin Man films, in which he takes tipsy to new heights. Evelyn Brent is even better, giving a real star performance. Clive Brook is fine, adequately uppity, but the thing falls apart with Doris Kenyon's scenes / Easily Powell's worst film. He himself is reasonably effective, though due only in part to his histrionic ability. Luckily for him, his character is supposed to move slowly and speak deliberately. Considering she doesn't have the same good fortune, Evelyn Brent (chillingly effective here in a totally

unsympathetic role) comes out of the movie best - if "best" is an adjective that can be applied to a movie that looks for all the world like a very mediocre stage play, that moves with the speed of a snail, that is so dialogue-bound as to stretch the patience of even a most indulgent audience, that exhibits little or nothing in the way of directorial flair and, worst of all, has the impoverished look of a movie made on a tight "B" budget / Doesn’t wear well. Of interest to film buffs, but you won't need to take a sleeping pill before going beddy-bye if you sit through all of this. Through the painstaking work of Roy J. Pomeroy, the film magician who "parted the Red Sea" in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, the audible screen adaptation of the play Interference is in many respects so remarkable that it may change the opinion of countless sceptics concerning talking photoplays. The vocal reproductions are extraordinarily fine and the incidental sounds have been registered with consummate intelligence. As a play it would naturally be considered far from perfect, but as a specimen in the strides made by the talking picture it is something to create no little wonderment. Those who might have felt that perhaps Daniel Frohman, whose shadow was heard in an address prior to the showing of the main feature, was perhaps a trifle too enthusiastic about the talking film, after the presentation possibly agreed with him. Mr. Frohman said in part:

I speak to you from the screen itself - triumphantly and with utter confidence in the new future that stretches before us. It was only last Winter that this play we are about to see tonight was enacted on the boards of the Lyceum Theatre. It was presented by the company which was founded by my brother, the late Charles Frohman. Tonight, carrying on the Frohman tradition, I once more welcome you on behalf of Mr. Zukor and Mr. Lasky to the inauguration of the greatest era in entertainment - an era made possible through this miraculous invention, the talking picture. No more will our best plays be confined to the few big cities. These plays, with their stirring drama enhanced by the richness of the human voice, will go to the whole world.

As the picture with excellent diction was unfurled, it became quite clear that the Paramount officials had learned something by the mistakes of others. There were no muffled sentences and no disturbing explosive utterances. This spoken picture continued its melodramatic route on an even keel, with good expression and without the tinny timbre so often heard in its forerunners. The ringing of a telephone bell was natural and so was the knock on a door. One even heard a pen scratching its way over the paper as Evelyn Brent wrote a missive with her left hand. Yet the auxiliary sounds were not overdone, and those that were heard were not obtrusive, merely interesting. Mr. Pomeroy even gives the voice of an unseen person over the telephone, and one felt

intensely thankful that this excellent piece of work was not marred by a love theme song being rendered as Sir John Marlay told his wife how much he adored her. It could, of course, still be improved upon. The uptake of the lines is not always naturally timed. There are pauses that begin to make one uncomfortable, and the wording of the utterances could be strengthened materially in a number of instances. Considering that William Powell had to play the role portrayed before the footlights by that brilliant actor, A. E. Matthews, he gave a most creditable characterisation, realising the necessary restraint to get the most out of the part. The story, it may be remembered, is concerned with Lady Marlay's supposedly dead husband turning up under an assumed name and a consequent blackmailing plot conducted by a woman, who discovers that the "dead" man is in the land of the living. It is a cleverly contrived affair in which Philip Voaze, who was supposed to have met death on the battlefield, admits that he has given poison to Deborah Kane, after the tentacles of suspicion have commenced to entwine themselves around Sir John and Lady Marlay. Clive Brook, who has had experience on the stage, gives a capital account of himself as the eminent surgeon Sir John Marlay. Doris Kenyon is beautiful and impressive as Lady Marlay. Evelyn Brent does fine work as Deborah Kane, the blackmailer. Brandon Hurst also gives a sound and natural impersonation of a Scotland Yard inspector. While there are at times strange pauses between the lines of the players, the story is always clear and the characters are quite well defined. Moreover, when there are opportunities for the silent incidents it results in nicely worked-out suspense. It is a melodrama of the more sophisticated type, without any shouting or screaming. This picture was first produced as a silent effort by Lothar Mendes. Many of the scenes of this current work are undoubtedly based on that version, but Mr. Pomeroy undertook not only to give the characters voices, but also to direct them in their utterances. And here it might be said that only in a few cases is the lisp perceptible. When the Scotland Yard Inspector is searching for a stopper of the bottle containing the poison, it rather sounded like "thopper" each time he said it. Yet when Mr. Powell produced the stopper and called attention to it the word did not seem to have even a tinge of a lisp. Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times, 17 November 1928

THE CANARY MURDER CASE (1929)

A scheming, blackmailing night club singer called The Canary is strangled by her own necklace and natty gumshoe Philo Vance has to work out which of the half dozen likely suspects did the deed. Primitive set-bound filmmaking, to be sure, but a moderately engaging 77 minute whodunit emerges through the crackle and murk. Shot originally as a silent then part re-shot and part dubbed (because "difficult" Louise "Canary" Brooks wouldn't return from Germany to re-do her scenes). Mordant Ned Sparks and a barely recognisable Jean Arthur are among the cast. Though this is allegedly the first of Powell's Vance films, the subject of the second - the Greene case - is mentioned in the script! A lo-fi, hi-fun relic, rough but redolent, worth searching out. IMDb: A slow but okay murder mystery. Brooks disappears after about fifteen minutes and Arthur has no real part / Lots of talk and not much happens. Very stilted in style. The obvious post-dubbing of Brooks' voice is comical since she's given a nasal Bronx accent. Powell, just beginning to develop his persona as a sophisticate, really doesn't stand much of a chance here. However, for historical value, worth a try / Slow moving and dull - a curiosity at best / Powell's perfect diction and stage training make The Canary Murder Case hold up well even today. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Powell seemed to know instinctively how to play for the new talking picture camera. Sound made his career. For those who enjoy nice detective stories with a closed ring of suspects, you can't go wrong with this one / Sparks is not the lovable sourpuss we'll see in later films, but a rather vicious animal. Totally a surprise / A little too theatrical at times ... Ned Sparks seems miscast as a ruthless thug and Arthur's fans are in for a shock due both to the paucity of her part and the unattractive way she is presented and photographed. All the same, a murder mystery that is not only reasonably intriguing but ingeniously solved / A slow and dated but still enjoyable little thriller.

THE GREENE MURDER CASE (1929)

Under the terms of Tobias Greene's will, the surviving members of his family will divide his estate equally between them fifteen years after his death, provided they are still living at home. The fewer that survive, the bigger each cut will be, and there's little love lost on any side. No surprise, then, that on New Year's Day 1930, violent Death coming calling. Vance sorts it all out, though not before the body count has risen to four. Another crudely made, stereotypical but nonetheless effective Old School mystery. Powell is on good form and Jean Arthur's back again, this time with a better part. 67 minutes. IMDb: Powell's great Philo Vance is very much like Nick Charles in training: classy, sophisticated and brilliant, though not perfect. In contrast, Jean Arthur gives an awful performance. The good Arthur will not show up for another six years / Though a typically static two-room talkie, for its time the plot had some intricate twists and Vance very clearly explained how he came to his deductions. Recommended / With different casting (Warren William was the best Vance) and by making the character more faithful to the books, this might have been a real classic / Probably the weakest of the four William Powell Philo Vance cases / Storywise, perhaps the best of the three early Vance films. Technically a huge improvement on The Canary Murder Case with agreeable pacing and more natural acting. Jean Arthur has a much more substantial role this time. Still an unknown quality, she was to remain one of Powell's favourite leading ladies (later seen to best advantage in The Ex-Mrs. Bradford) / Powell, of course, is as debonair and smooth as always. I marvel at the way he was able to adapt immediately, almost by instinct, to the requirements of talking pictures / An antique, creaky but fun / An atmospheric murder mystery, dated but fascinating. The acting is of a high standard throughout / Lots to enjoy.

DOUBLE HARNESS (1933)

Ann Harding (above) was a fine actress. This was her third consecutive film (after The Animal Kingdom and When Ladies Meet) to be adapted for the screen from the stage. In each case, the result is magnificent. Powell here is on typically peerless form. 69 minutes. Not to be missed. IMDb: Charming, witty and rather risqué for its day / Ann Harding and William Powell are terrific in this strange little gem that runs the gamut from pre-Code drama to screwball comedy. John Cromwell directs with a sure hand. It's incredible how modern films seem to lack any sense of sophistication and style in comparison with even lesser known films from the '30s like this one. Pure joy / A wonderful but obscure little RKO treasure, gabby, intelligent, rapturous. Harding is radiant and Powell - restrained, suave and charismatic - wonderful as her romantic interest / With clever dialogue, fetching lead actors and delicious directing, I was hooked from the outset. A delight / A dull and talky romance about a woman who has all the wifely virtues vs. a man who is not really the marrying kind / Powell is his usual charming self, but next to Harding he comes off as a typical Hollywood performer - and talk about sophistication! Harding has to be the ultimate in "cool". I can only guess the reason she didn't become as big as Hepburn or Davis is that she didn't fight for better films / Powell seems to play his character with an almost sublime restraint and a barely concealed exuberance, as if he knew this was an Ann Harding picture and it was his duty to bolster her performance and her presence. He does so in the most magnificent fashion. The only thing this film lacked was more - more of the luminous Harding and more of how Powell brought his character into reality despite a stiff and rather formal screenplay.

THE KENNEL MURDER CASE (1933)

Philo Vance is a fictional detective featured in twelve crime novels by S. S. Van Dine (the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright) published in the 1920s and '30s. During that time, Vance was immensely popular in books, films and on the radio. He was portrayed as a stylish, even foppish dandy, a New York bon vivant possessing a highly intellectual bent - in short, an American Lord Peter Wimsey. The novels were chronicled by his friend Van Dine, a kind of Dr. Watson figure in the books as well as being the author. William Powell played Vance in four films: The Canary Murder Case (1929), The Greene Murder Case (1929), The Benson Murder Case (1930) and this one. (The character was also played by several others, including Basil Rathbone, Warren William and Wilfred Hyde-White.) The Kennel Murder Case is Christiesque fun, though difficult to follow especially through its first half. 73 entertaining minutes. IMDb: The most impressive of the fourteen Vance films made between 1929 and 1947. Powell's elegance and suavity made him the perfect Vance and although a year later he switched studios, he stayed in the same genre with the enormously successful and popular Thin Man at MGM / Keeps the viewer thinking and guessing all the way. The cast is a great ensemble. Powell exhibits true star quality. Who knows, perhaps he was rehearsing for his future as Nick Charles. He is a joy to watch. One also can see why Eugene Pallette [who resurfaces in My Man Godfrey] made more than 200 films / As far as murder mystery films go, it doesn't get any better. Populated with suspicious characters, all connected to a dog show and all having very good reason to murder the apparent suicide victim, it's truly tough to figure this one out or wrap one's head around it but, boy, does it proves fascinating to watch unfold / This is one of those movies that you wish you hadn't seen before, so you could see it again "for the first time" / Eighty years young and wearing beautifully / Kennel is one of the better Philo Vance novels and the film improves on the original story / Not as slick, warm or sophisticated as the Thin Man series, a high water mark of the effete detective, but still terrific in its own way and really well constructed. I'd not miss it.

RECKLESS (1935)

Jean Harlow (above) plays a showgirl pursued by playboy Franchot Tone and her agent William Powell. She chooses the wrong one with consequences that disrupt several lives. But love heals all - eventually. Powell and Harlow, both from Kansas City, were an item at this point in their lives and in this first of their two films together (see also Libeled Lady) shine bright as only stars can. Tone is also his usual well-scrubbed (mostly) cheery self, May Robson shows that her Lady For A Day success was no fluke and Nat Pendleton's benign dope persona is honed by much practice. One for a rainy afternoon. 97 minutes. IMDb: I've never seen Powell more relaxed and fun. He has obvious chemistry not just with Harlow but with May Robson as Granny. Their scenes together are a delight - and Jean is great! / The cast is wonderful. Powell is one of the grandest actors of them all, Tone is so romantic and classy, Robson plays her matronly role with just the right tone and even Nat Pendleton and Ted Healy add necessary grit. As for the movie's final scene, it more than redeems all that went before / Powell, Harlow and Robson are absolute delights in Reckless, a film that starts out on the light side, turns into a drama, continues down that road and ends at melodrama. Powell and Harlow have wonderful chemistry. Both were natural, charismatic, energetic performers. Robson is a riot as Granny and her scenes with Powell are gems / How do you make a turkey with a cast that includes Jean Harlow, William Powell, May Robson and Franchot Tone and music by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein? It happened in 1935 with Reckless, an unfunny, almost incomprehensibly bad melodrama from MGM. The script is terrible and the music awful. There is no comic relief, no wit anywhere. What was the director thinking? How did the best studio in cinema's Golden Age produce something this dreadful? Leonard Maltin gives it two stars out of four. That's far too generous.

MY MAN GODFREY (1936)

1936 was a vintage year for Powell. The Great Ziegfeld won Best Picture, After The Thin Man and Libeled Lady are both top hole and My Man Godfrey would be many fans' pick of the four. Oscar nominated for writing, directing and all four acting awards - though not Best Picture - it reunites Powell and ex-wife Carole Lombard in a polished, whimsical, delightful comedy-cum-morality tale. The version I saw ran 89 minutes and was colourised - and while that sounds all wrong, the result (see above) looks fine. Roger Ebert, I suspect, would be one of many to disagree:

When Carole Lombard and the family maid discuss the newly hired butler, we can read her mind when she says, "I'd like to sew his buttons on sometime, when they come off." In 1936, when elegant men's formalwear didn't use zippers, audiences must have had an even better idea of what she was thinking. The two women both have crushes on Godfrey (William Powell), a homeless man whom Lombard, competing in a "scavenger hunt", discovers living at the city dump. Lombard wins the hunt by producing Godfrey at a society ball and then, during an argument with her bitchy sister and loony mother, hires him to be the butler for her rich family. "Do you buttle?" she asks him, so crisply and directly that she could mean anything, or everything. Her romantic obsession is hopeless because Godfrey has transformed himself overnight from an unshaven bum into a polished, sophisticated man who prides himself on his proper

behaviour. When she grabs him and kisses him, he regards her with utter astonishment. My Man Godfrey, one of the treasures of 1930s screwball comedy, doesn't merely use Lombard and Powell, it loves them. She plays Irene, a petulant kid who wants what she wants when she wants it. His Godfrey employs an attentive posture and a deep, precise voice that bespeaks an exact measurement of the situation he finds himself in. These two actors, who were briefly married (1931-33) before the film was made in 1936, embody personal style in a way that is (to use a cliché that I mean sincerely) effortlessly magical. Consider Powell, best known for the Thin Man movies. How can such reserve suggest such depths of feeling? How can understatement and a cool, dry delivery embody such passion? You can never, ever catch him trying to capture effects. They come to him. And Lombard in this film has a dreamy, ditzy breathlessness that shows her sweetly yearning after this man who fascinated her even when she thought he really was a bum. Like Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels (1941), Gregory La Cava's My Man Godfrey contrasts the poverty of "forgotten men" during the Depression with the spoiled lifestyles of the idle rich. The family Irene brings Godfrey home to buttle for is the Bullocks, all obliviously nuts. Her father, Alexander (that gravel-voiced character actor of genius, Eugene Pallette), is a rich man, secretly broke, who addresses his spendthrift family in tones of disbelief ("In prison, at least I'd find some peace"). Her mother, Angelica (Alice Brady) pampers herself with unabashed luxury and even maintains a "protégé" (Mischa Auer) whose duties involve declaiming great literature, playing the piano, leaping about the room like a gorilla and gobbling up second helpings at every meal. Her sister Cornelia (Gail Patrick) is bitter because she not only lost the scavenger hunt but got pushed into an ash heap after insulting Godfrey. And there is the maid, Molly (Jean Dixon), who briefs Godfrey on the insane world he is entering. She loves Godfrey, too, and perhaps down deep so does Cornelia, and so might the protégé, if he didn't like chicken legs more. Godfrey buttles flawlessly, bringing Alexander his martinis a tray at a time, whipping up hors d'oeuvres in the kitchen and keeping his secret. He has one. Unmasked by a Harvard classmate at a party, he turns out to be born rich but down on his fortune after an unhappy romance. The Bullocks never figure out he's too good to be a butler (or a bum) because they're all blinded by their own selfishness,

except for Irene, who dreams of his buttons. Under the surface, emotion is churning. Godfrey, having come to like and admire his fellow hobos at the dump, is offended that the Bullocks flaunt their wealth so uselessly, and that leads to one of those outcomes so beloved in screwball comedy, so impossible in life. God, but this film is beautiful. The cinematography by Ted Tetzlaff is a shimmering argument for everything I've ever tried to say in praise of black and white. Look me in the eye and tell me you would prefer to see it in colour. The restored version is particularly alluring in its surfaces. Everything that can shine, glimmers: the marble floors, the silver, the mirrors, the crystal, the satin sheen of the gowns. There is a tactile feel to the furs and feathers of the women's costumes, and the fabric patterns by designer Louise Brymer use bold splashes and zigs and zags of blacks and whites to arrest our attention. Every woman in this movie, in every scene, is wearing something that other women at a party would kill for. These tones and textures are set off with one of those 1930s apartments that is intended to look like a movie set, all poised for entrances and exits. I found myself freezing the frame and simply appreciating compositions. Notice a shot when Godfrey exits screen right and the camera pans with him and then pushes to poor, sad Irene, seen through sculptured openings in the staircase and chewing the hem of her gown. Look for another composition balanced by a light fixture high on the wall to the right. You'll know the one. A couple of reviewers on the Web complain that the plot is implausible. What are we going to do with these people? They've obviously never buttled a day in their lives. What you have to observe and admire is how gently the film offers its moments of genius. Irene has a mournful line something like, "Some people do just as they like with other people's lives, and it doesn't seem to make any difference ... to some people." Somehow she implies that the first "some people" refers to theoretical people, and the second refers to other people in the room. Her futile love for Godfrey shows itself in the scene where he's doing the dishes in the kitchen, and she says she wants help: "I want to wipe." I know, it sounds mundane in print, but the spin she puts on it brings buttons back to our minds. The "implausibility" involves the complications of a theft of pearls, some swift stock market moves, and Godfrey's plans for the city

dump. Okay, it's all implausible. That's what I'm here for. By pretending the implausible is possible, screwball comedy acts like a tonic. Nothing is impossible if you cut through the difficulties with an instrument like Powell's knife-edged delivery. He betrays little overt emotion, but what we glimpse is impatience with some people who will not do the obvious and, indeed, the inevitable. The movie also benefits from the range of sharply defined characters, and the actors to play them. Even the biggest stars in those days were surrounded by other actors in substantial roles that provided them with counterpoint, with context, with emotional tennis partners. Notice here the work of Eugene Pallette who bluntly speaks truth even though his family is deaf to him. By God, he's had enough: "What this family needs is discipline. I've been a patient man, but when people start riding horses up the front steps and parking them in the library, that's going a little too far. This family's got to settle down!" His voice is like a chain saw, cutting through the vapours around him. This movie, and the actors in it, and its style of production, and the system that produced it, and the audiences that loved it, have all been replaced by pop culture of brainless vulgarity. But the movie survives, and to watch it is to be rescued from some people who don't care that it makes a difference ... to some people.

(RE, 29 May 2008) IMDb: I don't want to be one of those "they don't make 'em like they used to" people, but I just can't help it when it comes to comedy. We've lost that talent, it seems. I can't think of any great comedies of the past ten years. The golden age for film comedy was the mid 1930s to the mid 1940s (at least for the talkies; silent comedies were a totally different art form). This is also the period of the screwball comedy; My Man Godfrey was one of the first. Films such as Bringing Up Baby and The Lady Eve perfected the form, but Godfrey is almost as fine. It is funny, has Depression era social commentary, the script is marvellous and the finale is as good as any other, including the last scene of Some Like It Hot / Important as the social message is, it's the brilliant comedy that comes to the fore, courtesy of an electric script and great work from all involved / A great ensemble cast deliver a classic film that will live forever / Lombard illuminates the screen in every scene / Though Powell is wonderful in The Thin Man, I often wish he had not done so many sequels, saving his talent for well-written comedies such as this one, in which he is glorious / A successful blend of 'sophistication' and 'screwball.' Powell is pitch perfect, breezing effortlessly through every scene. My Man Godfrey has no mercy on the '30s aristocracy, portraying them as socially incompetent and morally bankrupt. "All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people." How terribly true / Among the best of comedies, and curiously thoughtful. A fine example of first-rate movie making / One to watch and re-watch.

THE BARONESS AND THE BUTLER (1938)

This Austrian play was surely only adapted for the screen, and Powell cast in its lead role, to cash in on the success of My Man Godfrey. Bill again plays a butler who is not only exemplary but more than the sum of his parts - for Johann Porok is also a radical politician. His employer, naturally, is Conservative Prime Minister and amiable buffer Count Sandor, whom Johann derides in The House while faithfully serving at home. Sandor's married daughter, the Baroness, claims to despise Johann only to discover that actually she loves him. And he's always loved her. 79 minutes of pleasantly diverting nonsense in which Powell shines, PM Henry Stephenson is good and Baroness Annabella is not. WILLIAM POWELL VS. THE WORLD William Powell the unflappable. That was his screen persona, memorialised in the likes of The Thin Man. He had a voice like single malt Scotch and a suave manner somehow equal parts immensely cultured and rough. In the glory days of 1930s romantic comedies, he was a king. William Powell was the 1930s equivalent of Fonzie. He was untouchably cool. On screen, that is. No man is ever really so unmoved. And in 1938, the off-screen William Powell was in personal and professional turmoil. The love of his life, Jean Harlow, died tragically of renal failure at the age of 26. Still reeling from grief at this loss, Powell found his contract at MGM, the studio that practically made him a star, over. He was adrift, in more ways than one - but would be called on to put on a

happy face for the cameras to play opposite French actress Annabella in her American debut for a one-off romantic comedy made at 20th Century Fox. Almost immediately after completing the film, Powell would be diagnosed with rectal cancer, and spend most of the next two years fighting for his life. That The Baroness And The Butler is even watchable is a testament to Powell's professionalism. It was an adaptation of the 1936 Viennese play Jean. (I remain consistently surprised at how many of Hollywood's romantic comedies in that period came from Austrian and Hungarian theatre. Was Austro-Hungarian theatre of the 1930s really such a hotbed of great farce? Or was it that a bunch of Austrian and Hungarian exiles were hiding out in Hollywood from the Nazis and going for what they knew?) The play had already migrated to Broadway in 1937, where it took the title The Lady Has A Heart and accommodated Vincent Price in the role now destined to be Powell's. That role was Jean, the title character. A note appended to the first screenplay treatment in the studio files indicates that the Fox writing staff were already eyeing another title change: "Jean is a rather Frenchy name and is interchangeably masculine and feminine." Studio chief Darryl Zanuck decided the new title: The Baroness and the Butler. The play had obviously been selected on the basis of its thematic similarity to Powell's Oscar-nominated blockbuster hit My Man Godfrey. Again, Powell is cast as a butler in a situation that turns on the Depression-era gap between the Haves and the Have nots, although this time the action was relocated to a fantasy vision of Hungary, full of faux-European opulence. Mixing class-warfare and progressive rabble-rousing with romantic comedy sounds like a dangerous concoction, and one cannot easily imagine the studio moguls in the late 1930s taking such stuff lightly. But the more audiences responded positively to these socially-minded farces, the more Hollywood would keep making them - and William Powell's brilliance in Godfrey, one of the most prominent of the sub-genre, made him an obvious go-to choice for anyone seeking to replicate that formula. He was even in contention to play the male lead in Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka, a role that went to Melvyn Douglas when Powell's cancer-related troubles sidelined him for a few years. Director Walter Lang had worked his way up the ranks during the silent era. By 1926 he was directing movies - and then he decided to give it up. Lang took a brief hiatus from that career to try his hand at being an expatriate painter in Paris. He soon slunk back to Hollywood with his tail between his legs to resume making comedies, such as the Carole Lombard vehicle No More Orchids. By the 1940s and '50s he settled into making lavish Technicolor musicals, of which his last was the mildly unfortunate swan song Snow White and the Three Stooges (not an unbearably bad movie, but likely not how the director of The King and I and Desk Set would like to be remembered).

The Baroness and the Butler opens by introducing not its characters but its settings - three places, each as significant to the plot as any of the humans who live there. The first is the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest, where the rulers rule. Second is the town of Tura, where the ruled live in poverty. Last is Castle Sandor, where the rulers live in prosperity. Then, and only then, is it time to introduce William Powell as Jean, now renamed Johann, the butler to the Prime Minister, Count Sandor (Henry Stephenson). Theirs is a warm relationship: Sandor is a generous old man with a big heart, and his servant seems to genuinely love him. But it is a professional relationship, demarcated by clear class boundaries and strict rules. It may appear to be a form of friendship, but it is a friendship in which one man is forbidden to sit in the presence of the other, all but banned from speaking at all. So, when it comes to pass that Johann has been elected to serve as a Senator representing the socially progressive opposition party, this relationship is put to the test. Well, sort of. The odd thing about this movie, the thing that keeps it from being great, while at the same time providing its main source of interest, is that the improbable central premise is only a loony high-concept on top of which the filmmakers stretch out an even nuttier and less plausible set of additional circumstances. At Parliament, Johann is a sharp-tongued activist with a take-no-prisoners opposition to Sandor; but he retains his position as butler! The tensions multiply in every direction: these two men admire and respect each other, yet are political foes. And even that respect between them is a source of tension - Sandor's gentle demeanour makes him a beloved public figure, yet he advances regressive and selfish policies for the moneyed set. Johann needs to destroy his master's public image to make any social change. Meanwhile, Sandor agrees with Johann's policies, yet does nothing to help him and rankles that his butler's public responsibilities are distracting him from his private duties. The Sandor family practically explode with fury at the betrayal, and are horrified to have to think of their butler now as something of a social equal. And did I mention this is a romantic comedy? The romance angle comes from Annabella as the PM's daughter Katrina. As long as Johann was unambiguously her servant, she flirted with him constantly. Now that he has all these uppity ideas above his station, she sets out to ruin him - but this being a 1930s rom-com, her surface hostility masks a hidden tenderness. In the age of the screwball, combat is courtship. It doesn't really work, certainly not the way its makers probably intended. It's hard to swallow a serious political message from something so scattershot and farcical, yet it's equally hard to lose yourself in the comic complications when everyone keeps making political speeches. Throughout it all, Powell gives a terrific performance. Whatever was burning away inside him, he appears to be his usual imperturbable self, adroitly juggling the conflicting moods of the

crazy plot. Annabella fares less well - her thick French accent and haughty demeanour are appropriate for her character but get in the way of the necessary sexual chemistry she's supposed to be kindling with Powell. One is cool as a cucumber, one is ice-cold, and the combination isn't entirely inviting. The relationship between Powell and Stephenson is another matter entirely. Here is genuine warmth and humanity, and more rare, a willingness to agree to disagree. In an age where contemporary American political discourse has become alarmingly ugly and vindictive, it is refreshing to spend 82 minutes in the company of two opponents who won't let their political beliefs obscure their friendship. David Kalat, 11 July 2015

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About William Powell:

It's worth noting that Powell spent years in silent movies before his (and Paramount's) first talkie, 1928's Interference. Though he's pretty hammy in it, he adjusted to sound with amazing speed, learning quickly to tone down the emoting. By his second talkie, The Canary Murder Case (1929), the Powell we know is coming into focus and by the follow-up, The Greene Murder Case (also 1929), the William Powell we know has arrived. In her book The Star Machine, Jeanine Basinger makes a case for Powell as the best actor the talkies produced ... It makes me happy to find someone giving him the credit he deserves as an actor. Going back to his silent days, he almost always got the most glowing reviews, even in films that were not the best. He was such a presence in Hollywood, reputedly very popular and well respected. It's strange that he seems to be less well remembered as others of that era. After a horrible 1937-8, I find it remarkable that he came back the way he did to make more great movies and then retire on his own terms. Although I think he may have had another great performance or two left in him, he went out with class and dignity when he felt the time was right. Definitely one of a kind. I recently saw How To Marry A Millionaire and was struck by Powell's wonderful speaking voice - rich, warm and authoritative. William Powell is my all-time favourite actor - a Cary Grant mortals can aspire to - plus a voice that led Roger Ebert to write that Powell is to diction what Astaire is to dance.

LIFE WITH FATHER (1947)

What was then Broadway's longest-ever running play (itself based on a best selling memoir) becomes a "rich adaptation" Maltin four star special starring William Powell as crusty patriarch Clarence Day, a man who, while thinking he rules his turn-of-the-century New York City house and home, is quietly subverted on every front. Powell's bravura performance was deservedly Oscar nominated. Wife Irene Dunne (above) lends able support, a young Elizabeth Taylor is radiant and look out for Zasu Pitts as Cora, last seen around these parts in Stanwyck vehicles The Locked Door (1929) and Shopworn (1932). 118 minutes. Warm, redolent, fine.

IMDb: Powell uses every second of this plum role to display his charming style and verbal acuity / An adorable, nearly perfect time capsule. If you want to utterly enjoy yourself for two hours, watch this film / A Victorian sitcom with stagy production and cornball humour. Disappointing / A wonderful period piece with tight direction and flawless acting - proof that an intelligent G-rated comedy is possible / The cast and director are first rate but the film itself is a let-down / The one weak link in the cast is Elizabeth Taylor, who gives probably the worst of her early ingénue portrayals. The role itself is bland as written but Taylor makes it far worse with her irritating, almost insipid girlishness / If you like old, obscure Hollywood gems, check this one out! / A lovely adaptation with beautiful sets and a wonderful cast. Powell and Dunne are superb / All the fun and spirit of the stage play are retained / Slightly dated and hardly spectacular but not too poorly done / Has "charm" written all over it / I doubt that a book, play, or film like Life With Father would last today, and we are the poorer for that. It recalls a long dead world, its fierce devotion to order and stratified social life in our homes and cities and nation. But it was not without its charms. Catch the sweetest moment in this wonderful movie when Mr. and Mrs. Day sing "Sweet Marie" together in their parlour on a summer afternoon / An acquired taste / A period classic.

MISTER ROBERTS (1955)

Powell's last film before retirement at 63 - and, in contrast to so many "stars" of screen and other media, no comebacks, though he lived for 29 more years. A class act. Mister Roberts was first a 1946 novel, then a successful 1948 Broad-way play starring Henry Fonda (above, right) in the title role. Though it was generally well received (Best Picture nominated, four Maltin stars), Fonda regarded the film as inferior to the stage production, which ran for almost three years and more than 1100 performances. Jack Lemmon (above, centre, as Ensign Pulver) won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Though the film pays off in the last ten minutes, it's hard work getting there, with too much weak, ineffectual humour and precious little else. Powell gives a suitably dignified performance, but Cagney's silly caricature of a martinet - why an English accent aboard a US ship? - irritates. Underpowered and dull. 121 minutes. IMDb: Moves along swiftly and has fun with itself / One of the most overrated and dated comedies of all time / Bittersweet and uplifting. Quite the most astonishing film. It is a joy to perceive that old insanity of men locked together and freaking out because of it. The characters do no reflect life so much as live it / Hysterically funny at some times and heartfelt and touching at others. A definite must-see / Mixing comedy with genuine issues of human dignity, the film is a true classic / Entertaining and intelligent / Embarrassingly bad. Spare yourself the misery / I did chuckle a few times, but mostly I was bored or annoyed. Recommended only for children and those who feel a nostalgia for the forties / The dialogue of the stage play rang true; it had the flavour of the rough speech of military men. This was lacking in the cleaned-up film version. Also, the scenes with drunken sailors were believable on stage, but not so in the film. Whoever did the voice coaching for the movie had no idea of how drunks talk / One of the gems of American cinema / Slow start but a strong finish in a style that would be reprised in the TV series M*A*S*H / The terrific cast and writing make this my all time favourite. Superb! / Unlike other golden greats such as The Maltese Falcon, Sunset Boulevard and His Girl Friday, this doesn't age well. Kind of sad / Why is "Pulver" the name one hears so often? It's Cagney who steals every scene he's in / One of the best closing lines in screen history / A must-see film with unequalled performances. Recommended.

It's impossible to appraise the career of Myrna Loy without considering Bill Powell's also: all thirteen of their co-starring films are reviewed in the Loy file. The lines below are by PiperMaru22. Note that Powell's 1947 film The Senator Was Indiscreet features a short, uncredited Loy cameo (as his wife) only. (1) Manhattan Melodrama (1934) Powell and Loy's first film together. Dillinger was famously shot after seeing this (he went in the first place because Loy was his favourite actress). It features one of the few love triangles that I can genuinely say I enjoy and that actually works onscreen. Myrna Loy's character is clearly in love with both men, both men are in love with her and, best of all, both men love each other as well. Gable and Powell's characters start out as childhood best friends who grow up alongside each other through thick and thin, establishing a deep, brotherly bond ... All three actors clearly have fabulous chemistry with each other and it translates well here - really, it's one big love fest between the three of them! Oh, and if the love stuff doesn't sell it to ya, it also features gangsters, crooked politicians and plenty of witty banter between all three leads. Gable and Loy clearly had enough chemistry to sustain them through more films throughout the '30s, but this is the beginning of Powell and Loy's fourteen film (and nearly fourteen year!) onscreen partnership. Won a Best Story Oscar. (2) The Thin Man (1934) The first of the six Thin Man movies. I'll refrain from giving too much away, since each Thin Man film is technically a mystery. But trust me, you're not watching any of these for the plots (which are actually quite good for most of the series) - you're watching for the delightful chemistry of Powell and Loy as witty, sophisticated, sleuthing couple Nick and Nora Charles. Crime, martinis and a good time are never far away. The Thin Man is the first and possibly the best in the series. Nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Actor for Powell and Best Picture. (3) Evelyn Prentice (1934) Powell and Loy's third film together, and all in the same year. This time they're featured in a heavy drama piece. Powell plays a busy lawyer and Loy his often ignored wife. The plot picks up when Loy believes her husband has been unfaithful with one of his clients (Rosalind Russell, making her film debut). Loy starts up her own affair with a playboy, who turns out to be a blackmailer. When things turn violent, she believes she has killed him, but another woman is accused of the crime, and Powell eventually becomes her attorney. Completely melodramatic, but fantastic acting from Powell, Loy and their co-stars (particularly Una Merkel, who is hilarious throughout). (4) The Great Ziegfeld (1936) Powell is the main star in this fictionalised biographical tale of the famous Broadway producer Florenz Ziegfeld. Loy plays his second wife, Billie Burke (who hand picked Loy to play her - for those unfamiliar with Burke, she is most famous for playing the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz). Won three Oscars (out of five nominations), including Best Picture.

(5) Libeled Lady (1936) My all time favourite Powell-Loy team-up! It's a great screwball comedy, featuring not only Bill and Myrna, but also Spencer Tracy and perhaps the real scene stealer of the film, Jean Harlow. All four were perfectly cast, had great chemistry with each other, and were just thrilling to watch. Definitely a must see film for everyone! Nominated for Best Picture alongside The Great Ziegfeld. (6) After The Thin Man (1936) Second in the Thin Man series. Nick, Nora and Asta (below) are back in action, without missing a beat. Though the first film gets all the raves, this is actually my favourite of the series. It retains everything I loved about the first film and actually builds on it (which is what a good sequel in any series should do). Also has a fantastic twist ending! In 1937, Powell and Loy films were all over the Oscars - not only did The Great Ziegfeld win Best Picture with Libeled Lady nominated in the same category, but Powell was Best Actor nominated for his role in My Man Godfrey and After The Thin Man was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Thus the mid-thirties was perhaps the height of their popular onscreen partnership.

(7) Double Wedding (1937) Behind the scenes, things couldn't have been worse. During filming, Jean Harlow, Powell's lover and a close friend of Loy's, suddenly died. Both later stated that it was a difficult film to complete (and neither would look back fondly on it as a result). But despite all of that, Double Wedding is actually a fun and entertaining film. Powell plays a bohemian director / painter who happily lives out of his trailer behind a bar, and Loy the cold, controlling businesswoman who is the thorn in his side. The plot basically revolves around Loy's younger sister and her fiancé. Powell supports their dream of acting and Hollywood stardom. Loy, who believes they should just cut out the nonsense and get married, does not. In the process of butting heads, Powell and Loy fall hilariously head over heels for each other. Not the greatest movie in the world, and definitely not the happiest one for the two stars to make, but a fun little comedy that I enjoy watching again and again.

(8) Another Thin Man (1939) The third in the Thin Man series. Nick and Nora are joined this time by the latest addition to the Charles family: Nicky Junior - at this stage, still a baby, so not involved too much. (9) I Love You Again (1940) A completely ridiculous plot, but fun just the same. Powell plays a stuffy tightwad who, while trying to rescue a fellow passenger on a cruise, gets hit over the head by an oar, which turns him into a conman. Turns out he was really a conman all along - it was a previous knock on the head received some years back that had transformed him into a stuffy tightwad. Or something like that. Anyway, he decides to return to his conning ways and to empty his former tightwad self's bank accounts for all their worth. Along the way he discovers his wife (who wants a divorce) played, of course, by Myrna Loy. Apparently Loy is fed up with her overly frugal husband, but just as she's preparing to leave him, Powell (now in his conman persona) is falling in love with her. Naturally complications occur, which in the hands of this dynamic duo are hilarious. (10) Love Crazy (1941) In their last screwball comedy, Powell and Loy play a married couple trying to enjoy a wedding anniversary, only to be interrupted by the dreaded Mother-in-law and eventually blown apart over a misunderstanding with Powell's ex-girlfriend - all in the span of one night! Love is indeed crazy, because the split drives Powell to some pretty drastic (and insane) measures to get Loy back - going so far as dressing in drag! Maybe not their greatest film, but it's enjoyable, underrated and sadly gets more flack than it deserves. (11) Shadow Of The Thin Man (1941) Released just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Shadow..., fourth in the Thin Man series, was the last film Loy made until WWII was over. (She spent the war working for the Red Cross.) Memorable for featuring a young Donna Reed and location shots of San Francisco. (12) The Thin Man Goes Home (1945) Fifth in the Thin Man series. The war is over and Myrna is back in business! Nick and Nora visit Nick's hometown and what do you think they find there? Why, murder, of course! (13) Song Of The Thin Man (1947) The sixth and final film in the Thin Man series. Not much to say other than that Nicky Junior is played by a very young Dean Stockwell and the plot is mainly focused on the death of some nightclub musicians. The comedy of the mid 1930s, when this series began, was no longer popular with audiences in the late 1940s, so this is sadly Nick and Nora's curtain, as well as Powell and Loy's. But it was quite a ride!

Obituary: William Powell (1892-1984) by Peter B. Flint The New York Times, 6 March 1984 William Powell, the actor who personified the suave and sophisticated leading man in the 1930s and '40s, died yesterday at Desert Hospital in Palm Springs, California. He was 91 years old. His wife of 44 years, the former actress Diana Lewis, was at his bedside. The actor's wry, winning cynicism brightened such classics as the comedy-murder mystery Thin Man series, the farce My Man Godfrey, the musical spectacle The Great Ziegfeld and the period comedy Life With Father. Mr. Powell's ideal foil was the chic and peppery Myrna Loy. They co-starred 13 times, including six Thin Man movies in which he, as a retired sleuth, Nick Charles, and she, as his tag-along socialite wife, Nora, matched martinis and mirth, sharing amiable brickbats and trapping wrongdoers in the urbane movies from stories by Dashiell Hammett. Their zest and bantering affection showed that marriage could be merry. They started a vogue of madcap detective films, and many impressionable viewers, believing they were also married off screen, wrote them, seeking advice on marital problems. In a statement yesterday, Miss Loy recalled, "I never enjoyed my work more than when I worked with William Powell. He was a brilliant actor, a delightful companion, a great friend and, above all, a true gentleman." Nominated for 3 Oscars A major triumph in the more than 90 movies made by the dapper actor was his superb portrayal of the benevolently irascible Clarence Day Sr. in Life With Father (1947) adapted from the record-breaking play. That movie, along with the comedy The Senator Was Indiscreet, in which he played the title role of a charming bumbler, won him the 1947 best-actor award of the New York Film Critics. He was nominated for three Oscars as best actor, in 1934 for The Thin Man, the first in that cycle; in 1936 for My Man Godfrey, and for Life With Father. Mr. Powell was noted for his trim moustache, impeccable attire and resonant voice. He was not handsome in the accepted Hollywood sense. His face was considered suited more to sinister than romantic roles, and throughout the silent-film era he invariably played cads and other villains. But sound movies projected his polished charm and wit, making him a highly paid hero and leading box-office star for more than two decades. Subtle Humour in All Roles The actor had a meticulous sense of timing and rehearsed his roles at home, reading his lines aloud to himself. When he reached stardom, he also helped polish his scripts. In progressing from "heavies" to character roles to leading men, he injected subtle comic qualities into his characterisations, transforming

even scoundrels into plausible and even somewhat humane characters, no matter how menacing their actions might be. An interviewer reported in 1949 that Mr. Powell spent most of the time on a set deleting his dialogue, preferring a gesture to a page of conversation. "It's easier," he remarked. His quip belied his serious view of his craft. In an earlier interview he was asked how he kept trim. "I highly recommend worrying," he replied. "It is much more effective than dieting." Born in Pittsburgh William Horatio Powell was born in Pittsburgh on July 29, 1892. He started making speeches soon after he could talk, according to his mother, the former Nettie Brady. She and his father, Horatio Warren Powell, an accountant, wanted him to become a lawyer, but the boy was drawn early to Pittsburgh's Bijou Theater, where he haunted the gallery, studied the performers and, at home, imitated the actors. In 1907, the family moved to Kansas City, Mo. He attended the University of Kansas, but dropped out after one week to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan. In 1912, he played three bit parts in a play that closed after two weeks on tour and then he did a vaudeville stint. The next year, at the age of 21, he became the featured villain in a road company of the melodrama Within The Law, playing the role for nearly two years. After appearing in more than 200 plays, he entered silent movies in 1922 as the arch villain in Sherlock Holmes, with John Barrymore in the title role. Among his best performances in about 30 silents was his role in the 1926 film adaptation of Beau Geste, which starred his friend Ronald Colman. Later that year, Mr. Powell made his first talking picture, Interference. Sound freed the actor from the stereotype of the oily scoundrel or social roué. James Robert Parish and Don E. Stanke wrote in their 1975 book The Debonairs that "because of the amazing aura of his civilised manner, Mr. Powell could tread on any side of the law in a film and still retain audience sympathy." Nick and Nora an Ideal Team He was starred as S. S. Van Dine's resourceful sleuth, Philo Vance, in The Canary Murder Case (1929) and three sequels. The team of William Powell and Myrna Loy was formed at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1934. Trailed by their perky wirehair terrier, Asta, they drolly hobnobbed with a motley range of suspicious characters in The Thin Man and sequels in 1936, 1939, 1941, 1945 and 1947. The year 1936 was a banner one for the actor with such performances as the title role in The Great Ziegfeld, which won an Oscar as the best movie of the year, and as a rich man turned butler in the screwball comedy My Man Godfrey, co-starring Carole Lombard. In 1937 the actor's career was halted for more than a year by what was then described as a stomach and abdominal ailment, requiring several operations. Decades later,

he acknowledged that the illness had been rectal cancer. He was treated with radiation, pronounced cured, and told an interviewer in 1963, "I was one of the lucky ones." The actor sought for years to play the individualistic 1880s patriarch in Life With Father (1947). Reviewers acclaimed it as his finest performance. Powell was married three times to actresses: Eileen Wilson, briefly to Miss Lombard and in 1940 to Diana Lewis. The first two marriages ended in divorce. He was also romantically linked with Jean Harlow in the year before her death in 1937. He had a son by his first wife, William David Powell, a story editor and producer who committed suicide in 1968. Shunned the Night Life Off camera, the actor was known to acquaintances as reserved and businesslike and to intimates as a wry eccentric who savoured practical jokes. "Cultivate solitude and quiet and a few sincere friends," he said, "rather than mob merriment, noise and thousands of nodding acquaintances." The nearly six-foot-tall actor came to dislike being described as suave and sophisticated. Although he was once called one of Hollywood's best-dressed men, he paid little attention to clothes. Mr. Powell's later roles were again character types, and he won particular praise for his final performance, that of a bored Navy ship's doctor in the 1955 comedy Mister Roberts. After it, he retired to Palm Springs to play golf, oversee his investments and lead a leisurely life with his wife in their desert sanctuary.