I have a confession to make: I haven’t always enjoyed screwball comedy.
The Philadelphia Story was probably the first I watched. Though drawn by the considerable wattage of Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, gloriously united in one movie, I winced at too many scenes to see the humour in them. Yes Tracy Lord is proud and pert, but she undoubtedly has a point. I also found it increasingly difficult to laugh after Tracy’s father blames her for his own philandering, and we’re expected to nod in agreement. I could appreciate the film as a great showcase for three wonderful actors- and for giving Katharine Hepburn a new lease on life in Hollywood- but I could not love it. Also starring Grant and released the same year as Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday hurtles around at a frenetic pace and boasts a script that positively sings with zingers, but somehow still manages to leave me cold.
These were hallowed classics of the genre, so the message seemed clear- screwball wasn’t for me.
It took a first-year course in Film History and Historiography to change my mind. Sandwiched between Soviet Silent Cinema and French Poetic Realism was Classical Hollywood and its film-of-the-week, It Happened One Night. I chuckled, then cried with laughter, and was surprised to realize I wanted to see the film all over again. Bringing Up Baby was next on the recommended viewing list- I was hooked.
All of which brings me to Nothing Sacred. This movie has ‘screwball comedy’ written through it like a stick of rock, and the first time I saw it we really didn’t get along. The heroine was unsympathetic, the hero not much better and his boss much, much worse. It’s only virtue seemed to be that at just under eighty minutes it was thankfully short. It aired recently during TCM’s ‘Summer under the Stars’ Carole Lombard marathon and as a screwball comedy neophyte, I decided to give it another go. It was the best decision I made all day.
Wallace Cook (Fredric March) is a hotshot reporter for the New York Morning Star until his latest scoop, foreign potentate and benefactor the Sultan of Mazipan, is unmasked as a penniless bootblack and massive fraud. Now the laughing stock of New York, Wally is demoted from the ‘land of the living’, consigned to a lowly desk job on the Obituary Column. When he stumbles across the story of Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard) – a young woman dying of radium poisoning in small-town Vermont- he sees a chance to resurrect his career and sets off in search of an exclusive. However Hazel soon realizes she’s been misdiagnosed. Reluctant to pass up the reporter’s offer of an all-expenses-paid trip to the Big Apple, she decides to lie and bask in her fifteen minutes of fame. How long can she keep up the ruse before her conscience, heart and prying doctors get in the way?
Scriptwriter Ben Hecht’s opening titles proclaim the film’s cynicism and cheek: “This is New York, Skyscraper Champion of the World…Where the Slickers and Know-It-Alls peddle gold bricks to each other…And where Truth, crushed to earth, rises again more phony than a glass eye…” No-one in this movie has the moral high ground- everyone from the press, to the scientific community and the fine citizens of New York come in for a skewering- and very few walk on the straight and narrow. Why would they when normal rules clearly don’t apply? Nothing Sacred looks at everything upside-down, its chaos and confusion part of Hollywood’s response to the Great Depression and an America turned on its head.
Queen of this topsy-turvy world is Carole Lombard. This was one of her favourite films and with good reason: her performance is a joy. Hazel is greedy and conniving, yet strangely innocent and endearing too. We believe her pangs of conscience; hilariously, they’re just not enough to stop her having a great time. It’s a delicate balancing act and Lombard pulls it off brilliantly. (Witness the scene in which Hazel is informed she isn’t dying: she deflates with all the comic precision of a popped balloon.)
I have a fondness for Fredric March and Wally Cook ranks among his best performances, certainly amongst his funniest. He slides from hardnosed, exploitative journalist to love-struck mark with aplomb and displays quite a flair for stone-cold pratfalls. Particularly fun are his dulcet tones as he describes plans for Hazel’s impending funeral to her, and his sparring with the Morning Star’s rabidly amoral editor (a superb Walter Connolly). March is better remembered for dramatic turns in films like The Best Years of Our Lives, but he and Lombard make a wonderful screwball pair.
Nothing Sacred is a David O. Selznick production and, unsurprisingly, it’s solid all the way through. Besides the two leads and Connolly’s mercenary editor, Charles Winninger also commands his share of laughs as Hazel’s incompetent and morally dubious doctor. Even the bit parts are small gems: look out for the flotilla of foreign experts brought in to examine Hazel and the dim-witted, excitable heavy who drives Wally’s boss to distraction. The film is also well served by a bouncy Oscar Levant score, beautiful costumes by Walter Plunkett and Travis Banton, and a cracking script by Hecht, Ring Lardner Jr. and Budd Schulberg- all marshalled under William Wellman’s assured direction.
A wry, irreverent commentary on the fleeting nature of fame that’s remarkably prescient by today’s standards, Nothing Sacred is a sheer delight.
Perhaps I’ll try His Girl Friday again. Third time might be the charm.
I concur with everything said above and add that the only concern I’ve had about the film and it’s brilliancy is that it seems to be missing about 15 minutes of story line. I sense that this occurs just at the end of the film where there seems to be a ‘rush-cut’ just after the musical extravaganza honoring Miss Hazel Flagg. This is not to denigrate the film or it’s production in any way but to see if anyone knows why it is not fully feature length. I note also that there was some dispute between directors and producers which may have precipitated a possible hurried release. In summary I should say that I’m left wanting possibly two or three explanatory scenes to gain the full pallet of this beautiful film. Anyway, thank you for opportunity to comment and enjoyed your expressions as well.
Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed the film and my review. I agree that the film does feel rushed towards the end, but the ‘trouble behind the scenes’ angle hadn’t occurred to me.