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Cluny Brown

Play trailer Poster for Cluny Brown 1946 1h 40m Comedy Play Trailer Watchlist
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94% Tomatometer 18 Reviews 79% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
To teach her to stay within her social station, Cluny Brown (Jennifer Jones) is sent by her plumber uncle to work as a parlor maid in the country house of Sir Henry Carmel (Reginald Owen) and his wife, Alice (Margaret Bannerman). Brown soon finds herself torn between her attraction to Adam Belinski (Charles Boyer), a political refugee staying as a houseguest, and the prospect of a stable marriage with stuffy Jonathan Wilson (Richard Haydn), a chemist.

Critics Reviews

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Keith Uhlich Time Out So go feed some squirrels to the nuts. This is as good as movies get. Rated: 5/5 May 25, 2023 Full Review Richard Brody The New Yorker Ernst Lubitsch's last completed film, from 1946, looks back to the prewar year of 1938 to take stock of the postwar world and to show how it got that way. Jun 5, 2014 Full Review Tom Milne Time Out Lubitsch's last film and one of his most engaging comedies. Jun 5, 2014 Full Review James Agee The Nation Lubitsch's direction -- always, at its best, so shrewd about protocol -- makes the film more amusing than there was any other reason to expect; and Richard Haydn's performance as a prissily bullying, mother-bound druggist is very nice caricature. Jun 23, 2021 Full Review Nicholas Bell IONCINEMA.com Effervescent, as Lubitsch was oft wont to be, it may not reach the generously comical heights of his greatest, but it's a fitting finale in its devious examination of smug, supercilious social hierarchies. Rated: 3.5/5 Aug 11, 2020 Full Review Alberto Abuín Espinof Still a good movie, which recovers in some moments the best of Lubitsch. [Full Review in Spanish] Feb 12, 2020 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Frances H Not up to Margary Sharp' usual standards. This plot is just a bit too much,, although interesting. But I prefer her Britannia Mews and the Miss Bianca children's books. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 12/13/21 Full Review Audience Member Jennifer Jones proves she has some wonderful comic timing (though her accent is awful). Over all, it is very hard to follow what is going on in this movie. Its like an inside joke that you try to get in on, and then realize you don’t care. It’s just boring. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 05/24/20 Full Review Audience Member Still hilarious Lubitch flick. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Audience Member The best comedy movie ever made! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review s r A cute romantic comedy about breaking stereotypes for love. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member The final film that Lubitsch completed before his death by heart attack, Cluny Brown is a gently amusing comedy buoyed by a delightful performance by Charles Boyer (playing a Czech refugee from the Nazis despite his unmistakably French accent). Jennifer Jones (borrowed from Selznick) plays the title character, an irrepressible maid cum plumber who has a sense of wonder and joy about everything. This approach (and the similarly direct responses of Boyer) flies in the face of the restrictive social structure - neither Jones nor Boyer properly fit into either the Upstairs or Downstairs environments. Even the pretentious middle classes have no room for Cluny who doesn't seem to "know her place". As always with Lubitsch, there are a lot of wry chuckles on offer here, some of them verging on double entendres, and more often than not, it is the script that heightens the humorousness of the situations rather than the context being funny on its own. Moreover, the excellent array of character actors in bit parts enlivens everything. All that said, this one probably doesn't reach the heights of Lubitsch's best work (The Shop Around the Corner, To Be or Not to Be, Trouble in Paradise) but it is a very pleasant diversion. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Cluny Brown

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Cluny Brown

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Movie Info

Synopsis To teach her to stay within her social station, Cluny Brown (Jennifer Jones) is sent by her plumber uncle to work as a parlor maid in the country house of Sir Henry Carmel (Reginald Owen) and his wife, Alice (Margaret Bannerman). Brown soon finds herself torn between her attraction to Adam Belinski (Charles Boyer), a political refugee staying as a houseguest, and the prospect of a stable marriage with stuffy Jonathan Wilson (Richard Haydn), a chemist.
Director
Ernst Lubitsch
Production Co
Twentieth Century Fox
Genre
Comedy
Original Language
English
Runtime
1h 40m