There are not that many decent movies made by danish directors in the 19th century, except for some from Carl Dreyer and Lars Von Trier. One of those lesser knowns, who actually made decent movies is Bent Christensen and his undoubtedly best known one, along with Støvsugerbanden (=The hoover gang) is "Harry and The Butler". Even if it clearly suffers from some of those superficial mainstream traits of the day, it does have a good story and a memorable performance by Ebbe Rode.
The old junk yard owner Harry (played by vaudeville singer Oswald Helmuth) inherits a decent amount of money, even after his masters has ripped him of taxes. As a man who apparently never had had that kind of money all at once, he is somewhat bewildered about what to do with them.
But then he is reminded about an old "fantasy" he used to have and that would be to have his own private butler. He then hires one, though "forgetting" to tell his new manservant beforehand, that he lives in what is practically a dump. He does have some good friends though, who regularly come around for a talk or a round of cards. There is also a young boy, keen on building a rocket out of the scrap heap, who befriends Harry.
The newly arrived butler is obviously rather stunted at the prospect of serving this old man in a rocky shack, where the dust pipe keeps falling off every time the train goes by and the springs in the chair are dangerously close to ejecting him into the air.
But despite everything, the Butler (played by Ebbe Rode) decides to stay. His manners are from another world than that of Harry and he keeps the supposed distance while trying to keep Harry on a gentlemans path.
As the story evolves and the butler gets more and more involved in the social life around him, which is a completely new and different kind of notion than he is used to in the rich and famous household he used to work for, the money also starts to run out for Harry.
But the story with Harry, his butler and the friends around him, who has also taking a like towards the butler, turns out to end in a surprising agreement between the two of them.
As an entertaining movie this is among the best and most memorable from the mid century comedies. It has great acting performances by Ebbe Rode as the upperclass butler, who gets a taste of the lower class but more down to earth honest kind of life.
It is mostly about friendship and discovering new sides of life and figuring to what really matters. No it is not in any way a masterpiece or even something great when it comes to cinematography. But it does have its share of charm and memorable scenes, like the one where Harry sits with his butler watching television through the shop window. there are also some new trends, like the boy roaming through a waste area searching for a blade. These kinds of social realism spots were not that common back then and an interesting little comment.
It gets my good recommendations as a suggestion for a danish movie of the mid century that is actually watchable. And it actually received a Oscar nomination for best foreign movie.
7/10
