Hyppolit, the Butler

Mátyás Schneider, a haulier, has suddenly become rich and has no idea how to behave. His wife, wanting to cover that up, sets about living like the upper middle class and hires Hyppolit, a butler who used to serve a count. From that day on it is the servant who decides how the household runs. Shot in the summer of 1931 as the second Hungarian sound film, it was directed by István Székely, newly back from Germany, and written by Károly Nóti from a play by István Zágon, with music by Mihály Eisemann. Gyula Kabos plays Schneider, Gyula Csortos plays Hyppolit and Pál Jávor the young lover. It was Kabos’s first sound film, and both its lines and its songs have kept it among the best known Hungarian comedies of the period.