The Celluloid Pantry: "Pixie Remover" and My Man Godfrey (1936)

[Beginning next week, The Celluloid Pantry will take a short hiatus while Nora spends the month as a writer-in-residence at the Ucross Foundation. We'll return December 12.]

"You must never be rough with them. You must always send them away quietly."

The Bloody Mary, a cocktail of tomato juice, vodka, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, Tabasco, and salt and pepper, was invented by Fernand "Pete" Petiot, a bartender at Harry's Bar in Paris as a much-needed hangover cure. In My Man Godfrey (1936), its alcohol-free cousin, the Virgin Mary, is served up with a new twist.

Like many Depression-era comedies, My Man Godfrey pokes fun at the idle rich. Godfrey (William Powell) is a homeless man living at the city dump on Manhattan's East River. He's taken in by the eccentric Bullock family after one of the daughters, Irene (Carole Lombard), finds him - "a forgotten man" - as part of a scavenger hunt.

One thing leads to another and Godfrey is hired as the household's butler, a position that's regularly vacated and hard to fill. His first duty the first morning on the job is to bring a glass of tomato juice to Irene's mother, Mrs. Bullock (Alice Brady), who's suffering from a mean hangover. "She sees pixies," the kitchen maid warns. Godfrey, no stranger to hangovers himself, adds a little Worcestershire sauce to the glass. "There's nothing like a counterirritant," he explains.

Godfrey goes to Mrs. Bullock's room with the glass on a tray.
"What's this?" she asks.
"Pixie remover."
"Oh, then you see them too."
"Oh we're old friends' Drink it, and they'll go away very quickly."
"Thank you. You're very comforting. I hope I'll see more of you. Maybe I'd better not drink any more of this, or you might go away too."

Pixie Remover (a.k.a. Virgin Mary)

6 oz. tomato juice
2 dashes of Worcestershire sauce
a squeeze of lemon juice
1-2 dashes of Tabasco (or other hot sauce)
salt and pepper
celery stick (optional)

Pour the tomato and lemon juices into a highball glass, over ice. (For a Bloody Mary, also add 1 3/4 ounces of vodka.) Add spices and stir. Garnish with a wedge of lime and a celery stick.

To All The Celluloid Pantry Entries

- Nora

Comments (4)

i was at harry's bar last month and it's not to be missed when in paris. it was a perfect, perfect middle (i was going to say "end" but it wasn't the end) of our last night in the city.

we knew about the bloody mary's origin but opted instead for mojitos made with havana club rum which is, like all things cuban-made, illegal in the states. mmmmm!

one of my dad's specialties was bloody mary's but made with clamato juice instead of tomato juice and he always added horseradish. majorly addictive!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when a Bloody Mary is made with Clamato juice, it becomes a Bloody Caesar, and it goes from being an American-in-Paris thing to a Canadian-in-Saskatoon thing.

I love Harry's Bar. One of my proudest moments as an international lush of mystery happened there a few years back. It was a Sunday night, a very dead night in Paris, and I was staying in the right bank, getting ready for a week of business meetings. I had just had an incredibly mediocre dinner at Cafe de la Paix, and needed something to take my mind off the dull meal. I headed over to Harry's to have one night cap and ended up in a lively discussion of bourbon with some new media dudes from London. After the fifth or sixth round, the bar tender reached down and presented a small lapel pin to each of the three of us. The pin has the letters "IBF". That was the moment I was inducted into the secret society of the International Bar Fly. Priceless.

Now, the other thing about the Bloody Mary is its link to the King Cole, which is the best bar in the world. Legend has it that the the drink, christened the "Red Snapper" was transported to the King Cole, where it became the "Bloody Mary".

And was there ever a greater screwball hero than William Powell? Or a more curiously tragic screwball heroine than Carole Lombard?