Nothing Sacred (1937)

Film: Nothing Sacred (1937)

Stars: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger, Walter Connolly

Director: William A. Wellman

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Carole Lombard-click here to learn more about Ms. Lombard (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

One of the rules of "Saturdays with the Stars" is that I never rewatch a movie for the series (I'm experiencing the star new along with you).  This oftentimes means that some of the bigger films in an actor's career (especially as we continue with this series) get left behind, and that's the case jumping from Twentieth Century to today's movie Nothing Sacred for Carole Lombard.  In 1936, Carole Lombard starred in My Man Godfrey, a movie that would earn her her only Oscar nomination & is generally considered to be her best film (it is one of my favorite screen comedies, and if you haven't seen it I order you to rectify that immediately).  Coming off of that, Lombard was a golden girl in Hollywood-a critical darling, and a name that basically was printing money.  Nothing Sacred was something of a disruption of that pattern.  Critically-acclaimed (both then and now) it was somehow a flop at the box office, and its enduring reputation has been largely due to its status as a genuinely good movie (albeit no Godfrey) and its place as the only Technicolor picture of Lombard's career.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses on Wally Cook (March), a reporter who is coming off of a story where he was hoodwinked into covering a con job as legitimate (which involves Hattie McDaniel in a one-line part, two years before she'd win the Oscar).  He sees a feel-good story as a potential redemption by covering Hazel Flagg (Lombard), who is dying of radium poisoning, and decides to give her a send-off that involves a ticket-tape parade & toasts all over New York City.  The only problem is that Hazel isn't dying, but let's him believe it so she can get out of her small-town life in Vermont.  When she falls in love with him, she realizes she needs to either disappear or die in order to not humiliate Wally, but in the end she marries him, assuming a different name, and letting the "celebrity" Hazel Flagg slip into the night.

Nothing Sacred is the exact sort of movie from the 1930's that I always enjoy, frequently love, but isn't really something that exists today.  Screwball comedies are truly something audiences have grown out of, but it's also genuinely a movie without a lot of laughs.  Nothing Sacred is clever, but it's more of a "hmm, that's witty" sort of observation rather than something that will have you bowling over with laughter.  It doesn't help that the Technicolor is unnecessary (it's fun to see Lombard in her only color film, as she looks glorious, but it does nothing to add to the movie), and the plot is ridiculous (why is the entire city of New York randomly in love with this blonde girl who is dying?).

That said, Lombard continues to sparkle.  She is a truly gifted comedian, and someone who knows how to have chemistry with virtually everyone, even a miscast Fredric March (I adore March in most things, but there's something off here-he seems to be underselling the part, and doesn't really relate to the role as a journalist...there's not enough meat on this role).  Her speech about the logic of her committing suicide is a riot (it's funny in the context even if that sentence is obviously no laughing matter in reality) & her crying jags are spot-on...at this point I'm starting to believe there's nothing she can't do, though next week we're going to see her stretch her skills in a movie that put Lombard beyond what audiences expected from her.