Indeed, Sir

So I finally saw It, the iconic Clara Bow movie. If you're not familiar with it, it's about a working-class girl falling in love with a wealthy young man, Cyrus, who runs the department store where she works.

Anyway, pretty early in the movie, this guy shows up. He's Cyrus' best friend, Monty -- an elegantly dressed, incredibly goofy but good-hearted British chap. We're told pretty early on that he doesn't work, although he does take an amiable interest in his friend's job. He's tall, slim and sharply dressed, but sports a highly inadvisable mustache. He ineptly woos girls who are totally unsuitable for him (including Betty, the "it" girl herself).

At one point, wacky hijinks lead Monty and Cyrus to believe that Betty is a *gasp* single mother. Cyrus is really a dick about it, but Monty -- although shocked and distraught at first -- is quick to "forgive" her and continue their friendship. And ultimately, even though he has a hard-core crush on Betty, he helps bring her and Cyrus together (in his bumbling way) when he realizes how much Betty loves Cyrus.

It's . . . it's Bertie, in his pre-Jeeves days! He's hanging around in New York trying to help his friends out of romantic scrapes and making bad decisions about facial hair and girls (he even shows an interest in Cyrus' Florence Craye-like jilted girlfriend at the end)! Even his dialogue is Bertie-esque ("You've got 'It', old fruit!").

Here's a better picture of the actor, William Austin. Again with the terrible mustache, although it looked worse in the movie. XD Note the striking blue eyes.

YOU GUYS

( Tiny spoiler behind this cut. )

That's got to be intentional, right? I've also caught some Sherlock Holmes references in the original Jeeves and Bertie stories. The cycle is now complete! Mwahahahaha!

Hope this is not too off-topic, but I just had to share it.

P. G. Wodehouse had a gift for writing lyrics, and -- along with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton -- he helped create the modern American musical. I just found this absolutely heartbreaking performance of his song "Bill", from the 1936 version of Show Boat. The singer is Helen Morgan. I just can't stop listening to it. (PS - Notice the description of her hypothetical ideal man in the introductory verse!)
( I don't know . . . he's just my Bill. )

ETA: Okay, I'm going to try this one more time. *shakes fist and LiveJournal* While I'm on the subject of Wodehousian music, I wanted to share this as well. I recently found footage of tenor Frank Titterton singing "The Yeoman's Wedding Song", a song that Bertie mentions several times in the books. This was apparently something that Bertie had to sing a number of times at school events/village concerts as a youth, and he claims in at least one story that he pulled it off pretty well. Having heard the song . . . that's pretty impressive. I wonder if this is something Wodehouse had to perform at some point when he was a young man.

ETA 2: My attempt to embed that didn't work, so here's the link.

By the way, the British Pathe website is well worth exploring. There's all kinds of rare and fascinating footage there, a lot of it from the general period of the Jeeves and Wooster stories.