Nothing Sacred ***** (1937, Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger, Walter Connolly) – Classic Movie Review 1,951

The delightful 1937 screwball comedy film Nothing Sacred stars Carole Lombard as the supposedly sick Hazel Flagg of Warsaw, Vermont, and Fredric March as a sleazy New York reporter creating sob stories out of her (apparently) imminent demise.

Directed by William A Wellman in 1937, this delightfully cynical, delectably dark-toned screwball comedy Nothing Sacred, written by screenwriter Ben Hecht, stars Carole Lombard as the supposedly sick Hazel Flagg of Warsaw, Vermont, and Fredric March as Wally Cook, a sleazy New York reporter creating sensational sob stories out of her (apparently) imminently expected demise.

Hecht ensures that the gags come fast and furious, Wellman keeps the pace frantic and hectic and the actors give stylish and immaculate comedy performances in this devilish satire that shows the press a well-deserved little mercy. Lombard in particular is on vivacious, dynamic form in one of her best movies.

Hazel had been told that she has terminal radium poisoning after a workplace incident, but now she hears it was a misdiagnosis. She is thrilled she isn’t dying, but she really wanted her compensation money to finance a flash trip to New York.

Demoted New York Morning Star reporter Wally arrives on the scene and offers to take Hazel to the Big Apple to report on her story and provide her with a grand farewell to life. Hazel becomes the queen of New York, the duo fall in love but what does deceitful Hazel do? A battle royal ensues.

The surprise is that the director is Wellman, not Howard Hawks or Billy Wilder, whose later Ace in the Hole covers similar ground. But Wellman is certainly up to the occasion, inspired by the material. It is incredibly dynamic and fast moving and all done in just 76 minutes. And it is a couple of big pluses that it is photographed in lovely Technicolor by W Howard Greene with a score by waspish actor Oscar Levant.

Hecht bases his screenplay on James H Street’s story Letter to the Editor, and returned to the material when he turned it into an early 50s Broadway musical called Hazel Flagg, with music by the legendary Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Hilliard. It was remade as Living It Up in 1954 with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Walter Connolly, Charles Winninger, Sig Ruman, Frank Fay, Maxie Rosenbloom, Margaret Hamilton, Hedda Hopper, Troy Brown, Olin Howland, John Qualen, Art Lasky, Monty Woolley, Hattie McDaniel, George Chandler, Nora Cecil, Ann Doran, Bill Dunn, Lee Phelps are also in the vintage cast.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1,951

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Carole Lombard is photographed in lovely Technicolor in Nothing Sacred (1937).