Cluny Brown (1946, Ernst Lubitsch) is a profoundly bleak screwball where the oppressive force of the upper class is no better than the hopelessly stifling plight of the lower class. Concurrent alongside this there’s its basic premise, which introduces a cockney twentysomething orphan whose naivete precludes any instinct she might have to restrain her wanton sexual desperation and her chance encounter with a middle-aged fuckboy whom the narrative deliberately positions on an unavoidable course as a reoccurring mentor to her by way of random events.
Plumbing is code for sex. In the first act CLUNY BROWN (Jennifer Jones) is introduced knocking on the door of these two men to unclog a drain, her first words, “Should we have a go at it?” They get her drunk. After she’s unclogged it she’s sprawled on her back cooing how she feels chirrupy and like a Persian cat. And when she’s at Friar’s Carmel Manor, the master of the house has that line: “You mean to tell me young girls go in for plumbing nowadays?” to which Cluny replies, “It’s such fun.” And her first night staying there, when the heads of the domestic staff catch her leaving the room of the playboy BELINSKI (Charles Boyer), she exclaims: “I wish I could roll up my sleeves and roll down my stockings and unloosen the joint bang bang bang bang.” The Act II break is Cluny shames the mother of her fiancé at a dinner party at his home because she springs into action with her plumbing skills in the middle of a speech he’s giving. And later, with disdain he reprimands her as being a disgrace because she’s “subject to pipe impulses.”
How should we take their respective promiscuous tendencies? Is she a slut? Is he a player? Or are they just the way they are by nature and should be free from moral judgment? In Cluny Brown it appears to be all for laughs anyway. Or does it? The theme of Cluny Brown as told to us is: knowing one’s place. With the philosophical implication who’s to say what one’s place is? Who knows what one’s place is? Act II begins with Cluny being courted by the local chaste pharmacist WILSON, played with the same nasal British lilt he voiced the caterpillar with in Alice in Wonderland (1951), Richard Haydn. There’s a scene in his residence where he shows Cluny this picture painted by hand he’s quite taken with hanging on his wall, which she bemoans: “Poor little sheep. He hasn’t much future. Just mutton.” You think the subtext is it’s she who by marrying Wilson will settle for the rest of her life in the same dead end he has.
Except I don’t buy the ending one bit. It’s atrocious. Are we seriously to believe that after everything we’ve seen, how dutiful the Cluny we’ve come to know is, that she’s to abruptly leave her obligations to both her employer and fiancé? And all because the old lech bought her a pair of black silk stockings? And even if she were to run away with him, what would they live off of? The reality setting in could maybe be a life in poverty grifting a living as Bohemian scenesters. But no. Cut to: he’s overnight a bestselling mystery writer?
And who could expect him to remain faithful to her? We saw how he nearly sexually assaulted MISS CREAM (great name) in her bedroom. Bolenski’s a chronic philanderer and habitual liar. Methinks the movie really ends in the diegesis point where Cluny is sick to her stomach because Wilson told her she ruined the festivities. And that because high and low class British society are both so cold and ineffectual to treating Cluny as a human, we have to realize how sad reality is. And wonder were she to run off with the only other person who she could have thrillingly satisfying sex is would be using her and throw her away when he’s finished with her, that would be the no future existence, just mutton. Just another piece of meat to him.
Jennifer Jones as a hot master plumber indefatigably headstrong brimming wide-eyed with joy trying to find her place in life is escapist magic. Cluny Brown is escapist magic. Bolenski gets into the old screwball mistaken identity mixup as a Czech professor war refugee seeking asylum from Nazi occupation. But he’s really just an opportunist out for a good time who’s trying to get laid. This movie is a diversion that isn’t interested in real life conflicts. But Bolenski takes the free ride. And Bolenski forcing himself on Miss Cream is the only way her ANDREW finally proposes. Andrew only recognized his need for Miss Cream out of sexual jealousy and possessiveness.
Lubitsch is devious subversive. In Cluny Brown sex shows everything that’s wrong in the world. But just like real life, on the surface it works as an immensely enjoyable farce. And it’s up to us if we want to disregard the ending as a put on or not. I don’t think Cluny ever leaves Carmel Manor. And perhaps more than any other scene I’ve ever seen, when she’s happy having tea with four lumps and crumpets, it’s so perfectly beautiful. Then when they realize she doesn’t belong, that she’s the new maid, it crushes her (and me). “You thought I was somebody else didn’t you? Have I done something wrong?” is when she came to know her place in life. And the movie conveys that feeling. What it’s like to stumble into a point in life where you could be anything you wanted, and then it becomes clear that access to certain areas are off limits. The emotions of processing that.
How should we take their respective promiscuous tendencies? Is she a slut? Is he a player? Or are they just the way they are by nature and should be free from moral judgment? In Cluny Brown it appears to be all for laughs anyway. Or does it? The theme of Cluny Brown as told to us is: knowing one’s place. With the philosophical implication who’s to say what one’s place is? Who knows what one’s place is? Act II begins with Cluny being courted by the local chaste pharmacist WILSON, played with the same nasal British lilt he voiced the caterpillar with in Alice in Wonderland (1951), Richard Haydn. There’s a scene in his residence where he shows Cluny this picture painted by hand he’s quite taken with hanging on his wall, which she bemoans: “Poor little sheep. He hasn’t much future. Just mutton.” You think the subtext is it’s she who by marrying Wilson will settle for the rest of her life in the same dead end he has.
Except I don’t buy the ending one bit. It’s atrocious. Are we seriously to believe that after everything we’ve seen, how dutiful the Cluny we’ve come to know is, that she’s to abruptly leave her obligations to both her employer and fiancé? And all because the old lech bought her a pair of black silk stockings? And even if she were to run away with him, what would they live off of? The reality setting in could maybe be a life in poverty grifting a living as Bohemian scenesters. But no. Cut to: he’s overnight a bestselling mystery writer?
And who could expect him to remain faithful to her? We saw how he nearly sexually assaulted MISS CREAM (great name) in her bedroom. Bolenski’s a chronic philanderer and habitual liar. Methinks the movie really ends in the diegesis point where Cluny is sick to her stomach because Wilson told her she ruined the festivities. And that because high and low class British society are both so cold and ineffectual to treating Cluny as a human, we have to realize how sad reality is. And wonder were she to run off with the only other person who she could have thrillingly satisfying sex is would be using her and throw her away when he’s finished with her, that would be the no future existence, just mutton. Just another piece of meat to him.
Jennifer Jones as a hot master plumber indefatigably headstrong brimming wide-eyed with joy trying to find her place in life is escapist magic. Cluny Brown is escapist magic. Bolenski gets into the old screwball mistaken identity mixup as a Czech professor war refugee seeking asylum from Nazi occupation. But he’s really just an opportunist out for a good time who’s trying to get laid. This movie is a diversion that isn’t interested in real life conflicts. But Bolenski takes the free ride. And Bolenski forcing himself on Miss Cream is the only way her ANDREW finally proposes. Andrew only recognized his need for Miss Cream out of sexual jealousy and possessiveness.
Lubitsch is devious subversive. In Cluny Brown sex shows everything that’s wrong in the world. But just like real life, on the surface it works as an immensely enjoyable farce. And it’s up to us if we want to disregard the ending as a put on or not. I don’t think Cluny ever leaves Carmel Manor. And perhaps more than any other scene I’ve ever seen, when she’s happy having tea with four lumps and crumpets, it’s so perfectly beautiful. Then when they realize she doesn’t belong, that she’s the new maid, it crushes her (and me). “You thought I was somebody else didn’t you? Have I done something wrong?” is when she came to know her place in life. And the movie conveys that feeling. What it’s like to stumble into a point in life where you could be anything you wanted, and then it becomes clear that access to certain areas are off limits. The emotions of processing that.
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