Fools for Scandal * (1938, Carole Lombard, Fernand Gravet, Ralph Bellamy, Allen Jenkins) – Classic Movie Review 6755

Carole Lombard is uninspired in a rare flop movie for her.

Director Mervyn LeRoy’s 1938 Warner Bros movie is an unexpectedly sad failure of a romantic comedy in which Fernand Gravey [Gravet] stars as a broke French nobleman called René Vilardell who in London masquerades as the chef/ butler to a rich film star named Kay Winters (Carole Lombard) to win her affections.

The normally sparkling Lombard is uninspired here, and Gravet is very dull indeed. Surprisingly, Ralph Bellamy out-acts everyone else as Phillip Chester, an insurance man with a crush on Lombard’s character Kay and wants to marry her, though René plans to make Phillip history.

The Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart songs specially commissioned for the film were mostly dropped but ‘Fools for Scandal’, ‘There’s a Boy in Harlem’ and ‘How Can You Forget?’ survived.

Also in the cast are Allen Jenkins, Isabel Jeans, Marie Wilson, Ottola Nesmith, Marcia Ralston, Heather Thatcher, Jacques Lory, Tempe Pigott [Piggott], Elspeth Dudgeon, Norman Varden, Leyland Hodgson, Michelette Burani, Jeni Le Gon,   Les Hite and John Sutton.

Fools for Scandal is directed by Mervyn LeRoy, runs 81 minutes is released by Warner Bros, is written by Herbert Fields and Joseph Fields, based on the play Return Engagement by Nancy Hamilton, is shot in black and white by Ted Tetzlaff, is produced by Mervyn LeRoy and scored by Leo F Forbstein, with music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6755

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