FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

In The Legend of the Holy Drinker, a homeless man’s life is transformed by the kindness of a stranger. Your choices, then, for what we’ll be screening on Tuesday 24 March are out of three more films with protagonists of no fixed address. Up for the vote are…

Boudu Saved from Drowning (Jean Renoir, France, 1932)

"The most startling thing about Boudu is just how incredibly fresh it remains." Wally Hammond, Time Out

The attempted suicide of Parisian street tramp, Priape Boudu (Michel Simon), is prevented by bookshop owner Edouard Lestingois (Charles Granval). Touched by Boudu's life story, Edouard and his wife, Emma (Marcelle Hainia), allow Boudu to live in their home so they can reform him into a model bourgeois citizen, but unexpected events unravel their well-intentioned plans... Jean Renoir's 1932 masterpiece is as informal, beguiling, and subversive as its eponymous hero.

My Man Godfrey (Gregory La Cava, USA, 1936)

"God, but this film is beautiful." Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Fifth Avenue socialite Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard) needs a ‘forgotten man’ to win a scavenger hunt and hires the homeless Godfrey Park (William Powell) as a servant for her unhinged family. While her spoiled sister, Cornelia (Gail Patrick), tries her best to get Godfrey fired, Irene finds herself falling for her new butler... Gregory La Cava's screwball classic is both a Depression-era satire of the idle rich and a tribute to the noble poor.

Scarecrow (Jerry Schatzberg, USA, 1973)

"This is a jewel of American cinema." Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

Gene Hackman and Al Pacino star, respectively, as Max and Lion, a couple of homeless drifters who meet on the road in California. The pair agree to become partners in a car-wash business when they reach Pittsburgh, but their journey east doesn't quite go according to plan… Scarecrow is a quietly devastating film about friendship, dreams, and the loneliness of drifters.