Holy Matrimony (John M. Stahl, US, 1943)

This droll fable of class and authenticity reveals Stahl as a capable director of comedy. In pre–World War I England, celebrated and misanthropic painter Priam Farll (Monty Woolley) takes advantage of a case of mistaken identity to escape an impending knighthood. While his freshly deceased valet Henry Leek (perennial “gentleman’s gentleman” Eric Blore) lies in state at Westminster, Farll adopts Leek’s persona as well as his mail-order sweetheart, Alice (Gracie Fields), who quickly bustles Farll off to the chintzy comforts of Putney. There they live together in quiet contentment—until the insatiable art market finds Farll, and a scandalized nation is left to question the distinctions between gentleman and servant, genius and fraud. The film benefits from its appealingly unconventional lead couple and from a crowd of memorable character actors, including Una O’Connor as a querulous widow and Laird Cregar as a gallerist who puts the con in connoisseurship.

• Written by Nunnally Johnson, based on the play The Great Adventure by Arnold Bennett. Photographed by Lucien Ballard. With Monty Woolley, Gracie Fields, Laird Cregar, Una O’Connor. (87 mins, B&W, 35mm, From 20th Century Fox Library, permission Criterion Pictures)