One last look at Nothing Sacred

I know I've said this before, but I really, really wanted to like Nothing Sacred. It has Carole Lombard in it, so what's not to like? Well, unfortunately for me, there were one too many things that I really didn't care for. Overall, it isn't a bad film, but it seems almost confused, as if no one really knew what kind of story it really was or rather what kind of comedy it was. While Ben Hecht was going one way, William Wellman went another, and then there are the actors who made the most out of the script and the direction given. Had this been put in lesser hands, it would've turned out to be a disaster, but thankfully, for the most part, Lombard saves the film.

Casting the right leads is crucial for a successful screwball comedy and this film did right by casting Lombard in the role. She took Hazel and made her endearing in spite of her selfish motives and deception. There's no one quite adept at mastering the screwball heroine quite like Lombard. From her faces and reactions to the way she prances around like a five-year-old, Lombard makes any character she embodies likable. To top it off, she's absolutely beautiful and glamorous, so you love to watch her out in the town with fantastic gowns. And one of the best examples of Lombard's embodiment of Hazel is when she sits at a table in a night club wearing a fabulous designer gown, all the while she's sipping her drink and complaining and pouting like a schoolchild how New York isn't fun with everyone moping around. To see her is screwball at its best.

But then there are also some miscasts. There's something off about Fredric March in this film, and one might think it's a lack of chemistry between him and Lombard, but that isn't the case. The scene in which he proposes marriage to her after they come out of the river, shows some amazing sparks between them, even if momentarily. March was just given a rewritten script but not any proper direction, and unfortunately, that means he isn't very funny. But he isn't the only miscast. There's also Walter Connolly, who seems as if he's trying too hard to be funny and doesn't end up being very funny at all. The problem with these miscasts is that without the right actors, then you end up with a mediocre film. This casting just adds to the confusion. Connolly should've stolen the show from Lombard and March. His role remained the same more or less from the early Hecht draft, and Connolly should've or should've been allowed to take Stone to his exploitative best. The problem with these two roles I think is that they were written quite cynically and for the film the actors were told to take the same roles to a screwy level.

Having said all this, there were obvious problems with tone. I didn't really understand until I read the script that the film wasn't set out to be a screwball comedy to begin with, but instead it was a satirical look at the circus of journalism. Yes, it's supposed to be funny, but screwball and satire are not the same thing. So initially, the first scene opens up and you think this is going to be a funny film, but the tone wavers after that. Some of the best screwy scenes, though, do come in the town of Warsaw. I loved the treatment Wally got from the townspeople, and my personal favorite was the child who runs over to a passing Wally and grabs his leg and bites it. But March also sets the tone off. His acting wavers from forced comedy to downright drama at points. Wellman failed to tell him that the drama bits are supposed to be exaggerated, or perhaps he saw his comedic skills and let him go right ahead with the drama instead. Unfortunately, all this just confuses you.

More confusion comes in the form of the script. I'll forgive the early filmmakers for making this mistake, but the more names you see credited to for writing in a film, the worse the story gets. Nothing Sacred has two credited writers, but on imdb there are another nine. A TCM article talks about two brought in for dialogue (one of which isn't listed over at imdb) and another two for the ending. That's a total of 12 people working on the same story at one point or another. It's a wonder the film is even watchable at all. Overall, the dialogue was fine, but then a funny line was thrown in and it seemed to come out of nowhere. It was only when I read the early draft that I realized the lines were kept because they were funny, but then the context changed a bit. Another problem with the script? Setups were not paid off. Of course, you wouldn't know it if you didn't read the earlier draft, but one of the best things about setups and payoffs is that you like being rewarded with a good payoff. Makes you happy you were paying attention. The ending, though, suffered the most, but then again, the early draft's ending isn't a screwball ending.

One performance that stands out nicely is that of Charles Winninger, who's really funny as Dr. Enoch Downer. Too bad, though, that in the film, he didn't get the chance to show the Morning Star who the six greatest Americans are. Winninger next to Lombard, personifies a great screwball supporting role. He's the klutzy doctor from a small town, and you wonder how he even got his license. And what was he drinking in the early scene? I feel as if that was another setup that doesn't get paid off. Thankfully, he is given the last line of the film, which again, comes out of nowhere, but he delivers it well enough to make you laugh, until you see the end credit and are reminded of the creepy title cards from the beginning of the film.

Yes, I can honestly admit, I didn't like Nothing Sacred. But really, I didn't like because it's a mess. I can recognize some fine performances and some lovely shots. I still absolutely love the scene between Wally and Hazel when he proposes, just like I laugh when Wally goes around Warsaw trying to find Hazel. But these lovely bits cannot save the film, not even Carole Lombard with her bubbliness. I really wish that Wellman would've been allowed to film the script Hecht wrote. Sure, Lombard would've been stretching her acting legs and perhaps have been seen in a different light, but I'm pretty sure she could've pulled it off, just like she made Hazel completely likable. If there's a reason to watch Nothing Sacred, it's for Lombard. You can never grow tired of her screwiness.

Screwball Satire?

Reading scripts from the early days of talkies isn't the easiest thing for me. I assume that many of the early screenwriters were playwrights to begin with and so needed to explain much stage direction. These kinds of things aren't really seen much in scripts today, unless the director has written the script. In any case, it's can be a lengthy process for me because it doesn't always grab me. So, I'm always hesitant to read an old script. Especially when I see a lot of action lines. This was the case with Ben Hecht's screenplay of Nothing Sacred. Straight from the beginning, he's describing this world, and I'm almost a bit overwhelmed. But truth be told, once I got over it, the story is quite good, and different from what the film turned out to be, and it became clear to me that Nothing Sacred wasn't meant to be a screwball comedy, but really it's more black comedy, it's meant to be a satire.

To be quite honest, I couldn't understand why it is that people love this film so much and I just couldn't see why, other than that Lombard was lovely in it and Charles Winninger was pretty funny, Hattie McDaniel and Margaret Hamilton have essentially cameos but make great use of their small roles. But I couldn't really see what it was that was great about it. I thought because of the change of writers that there was something wrong with the story, and there is, although I couldn't figure out how to make it better. When you reach the end of the film, you kind of know it's going there, but it's not very satisfying. I'm not really laughing a whole lot when Hazel suddenly tells all these leaders of New York that she's not sick and then they all decide the story can't get out. I like the bit about dying alone like an elephant, but that's a line that would have been funnier as a payoff if the film would've kept the setup from the script, but they didn't, and so it's just a funny line only because Carole Lombard knows how to deliver it.

The screenplay is quite cynical, and in the end I almost didn't like it. In fact, as I was getting close to the end I was a bit disgusted by Hazel because in my head I think this is a screwball comedy and suddenly there's nothing funny about kidnapping newborns from African-Americans who are written in such a racist manner that I had reached my limit. But it turned out quite funny and the ending was sweet. I still think the script has some blatant racism in it though, but I know those were different times. I think where the film fails is that William Wellman and David O. Selznick wanted it to be a Lombard screwball comedy, but it wasn't. Whereas in the film, you like Hazel, she isn't really likable in the script, but then again, no one is. Everyone has their own motivations for the whole deception. While Wally and Stone think it's the real deal, they exploit Hazel in order to sell newspapers. Hazel just wants a free tour of New York because she's sick of Warsaw and Dr. Enoch is holding a twenty-two-year-old grudge against the Morning Star for not picking him as the winner of an essay on the six greatest Americans--which is another setup that never gets paid off in the film, but in the script it does. Sure, these are all things that are pretty much established in the film, but the screenplay shows a more nuanced portrayal of these characters.

For the most part, Stone is left intact as a ruthless and exploitative newspaper editor, only there are more headlines he toys around with and to show how desperate he is at selling newspapers he even writes an article when he has to. Wally, on the other hand, seems funnier in the screenplay, but here I think it's because of the lines and so Fredric March's performance is hurt more by the rewrites of the script. The line of the greatest fire in Rome, which comes out of nowhere almost in the film, is said earlier in the scene and within the dialogue context. It seems as if the writers hired to polish up the dialogue only picked lines they liked and forced them onto new dialogue, without really re-reading it through. The marble editor line, though, was kept intact, which goes to show that March couldn't quite deliver it, or at least he couldn't quite do it for me.

The different ending reveals even more about some of the characters. Hazel is seen as even more ambitious than Wally, and suddenly driven to get a bigger story to help out Wally and Stone. On the other hand, Dr. Enoch was robbed of some of his best lines by the rewrite of the ending. This bumbling doctor, who you're always wondering how he ever got his license to practice, does the biggest botch-up in the end. The Sultan shows up again because his wife is delivering four babies and she had met him as a Sultan and so he wanted her to have a sort of formal delivery. He asks for Enoch's help. The good doctor falls for the Sultan's request. Hazel and Wally are trying to get out of New York before everyone discovers who they are and leave Stone behind to take the fall once everyone finds out the truth. Wally feels bad about it and wishes there was a bigger story that would overshadow Hazel. And while quadruplets aren't really that big of a story, when Hazel sees another African-American with recently born twins, she dons a nurse's uniform, tricks the father into going home so she can steal the babies from the nursery. She delivers them to Enoch, who reluctantly agrees to go along with the plan, and thus a new story is born: the world's very first sextuplets, or as Enoch names them, the six greatest Americans--he did say he was going to show the Morning Star the six greatest Americans if it was the last thing he ever did. And so, everyone is in full-mode again and Hazel and Wally slip out. Of course, days later when the two are to be wed, they get a note to go to the hospital at once, and when they all arrive, the scene there is filled with cops, Stone apprehended by a couple of them, Enoch by another pair, the African-American father pointing fingers, and when Wally and Hazel see this, they quietly slip out before getting caught. And what do the six babies sound like when they cry? Why they cry to the tune of the song Dixie. There're more details, but this is the general gist of it, and I must say it's more satisfying than the one in the film. It just seems like everything set up in the beginning is finally paid off in the end. It comes across as smarter and worth more my time. Mostly though, it's a lot darker and cynical of not just journalism but the people that drive it, from the reader to the journalist and round back to the object of the stories. Everyone in the end has their own selfish motives to get ahead and drive the newspaper business booming along the way.

Some of the other differences include the montage in the beginning and the attempted suicide. In the screenplay, the montage is different and then the scenes that follow are a different order of what we see in the film. For what I see in the script, it seems that is perhaps the only part in which the film version is served better. Much of this is more talking, but I liked that in the film these things are shown instead. I don't need to hear about the whole sculpture that is going to be made in Hazel's memorial, but I rather enjoyed watching a poet trying to be inspired by a bored Hazel sitting right across from him. What these scenes did show, though, was just how exploitative Stone could really get, something I kind of already knew, but through these scenes it's definite and who knows, while I could've done without them, perhaps if they would've stayed then Walter Connolly might've given a more convincing performance. As for the attempted suicide, Lombard has a way of making a simple suicide completely screwy. This scene is much funnier in the film, with Hazel getting the nerve to jump and Wally pushing her in and them jumping in only he can't swim. In the script, Hazel is found swimming and Wally rescues her. They banter, but the film version is much funnier, at least when considering it as a screwball comedy.

I'm really glad I was able to find and read the screenplay to Nothing Sacred, mostly because I really wanted to like the film and through the script I realized the true story and was able to better appreciate it. It would be interesting to see the remake to see how loyal it remained to either the film or the script. The screenplay made clear too what defines a screwball comedy, and the cynicism found in Nothing Sacred, isn't something typical of the genre. The film in the end, is an attempt at a screwball comedy but with dashes of satire so it somehow ends up being a screwball satire, which is confusing, and if you read the script, you'll just wish they made that film instead.

Screwball characters and casting

Some time last week I wanted to get into the characters of Nothing Sacred, but I found myself having a hard time, mostly because I was distracted by what I consider the miscasting of two crucial characters. No matter how many times I tried to go about it, I couldn't get past the performances, when I really wanted to just focus on the characters. So I decided to go ahead and read the screenplay first, and while I'm not going to get into that today, some of the characters there are completely different than the ones you see on screen, but then the script is different than the eventual film. But whereas Carole Lombard is able to mold the character of Hazel Flagg into a screwball heroine, Fredric March and Walter Connolly fail to give convincing let alone really entertaining performances in their respective roles of the ace reporter chasing whichever story comes his way and the newspaper editor who will do whatever it takes to get dibs on the lead.

There's not a whole lot more to say about Lombard than what I've already raved about. Is there another actress who can top her in the genre? Probably not. She has a way of taking on roles and just making them endearing. Her way of approaching scenes and reacting to them as almost a child would are completely brilliant. Her face molds itself into so many different reactions, but mostly it gives a wide-eyed wonder. While in My Man Godfrey she plays like a spoiled five-year-old, here Lombard plays like a sheltered rural school girl, out in the city for the first time. And even though she gets spoiled after some time in New York, you still like Hazel. One of the scenes that stand out is after the Heroines of History night in which she takes to the stage only to pass out drunk. That same night she had been complaining to Wally how she was tired of everyone looking at her so miserable. The next day, she's nursing a hangover when a group of school children arrive to sing to her. She declares clearly, like a spoiled heiress, that she'll go mad, but then she relents and says to go ahead and let them up. Hazel's still got a heart underneath it all. And throughout the film, she feels bad that she's deceiving so many people, but of course you laugh at it because she continues with the deception. But with Lombard as Hazel, it's hard to stay angry at her for too long.

Unfortunately, I wasn't quite taken by March's performance as Wally. Here's an ace reporter who just wants to do a great job. All he wants is to get a great scoop and deliver it and make his boss happy, in essence, he just wants to be the best reporter the world has seen. But I was never quite convinced of it. I wasn't sure if he was a crooked reporter or if he just wasn't smart. I mean, really? I'm supposed to sympathize with someone who keeps getting false leads? But I know this is supposed to be exaggerated, but March just didn't play the part. Why wasn't he gullible then like in a Ralph Bellamy sort of way? I'd prefer him to be smarter, though. And I think that was the point, just a reporter who's good but he kind of always gets such bad luck, no matter how hard he tries. But the comedic timing just wasn't there. Granted, it might not be entirely his fault. The finished film's script didn't provide really great lines for him. The line about the greatest fire in Rome. He delivered it at such an awkward time that I always thought it was his fault, but after reading an earlier draft of the screenplay I saw it wasn't him. Even still, he looks pretty ridiculous trying to be funny. It's hard to judge his comedic skills as I haven't seen his other comedies, but from this one alone, I'd say he's not really a natural. Most of his scenes with Lombard, he plays them so seriously that I often wondered if he was in the wrong film. They should've been a little more exaggerated, melodramatic even. I wanted to see him squirm more, but it just didn't happen. I don't think it was for lack of chemistry, I just think March wasn't the right man for the role, or maybe he didn't get the proper lines or the right direction.

Then there's Connolly as Oliver Stone, the supposed ruthless newspaper editor of the Morning Star. Connolly knows how to act, no doubt in my mind, but for some reason, once again as with March, he was miscast in this film. I didn't see anything ruthless about Connolly's performance except only in what came out of his mouth, but the way he actually performed, didn't show money-hungry to me. At first I thought I was biased, having seen him It Happened One Night, but I was convinced there that he's a ruthless business man willing to do whatever it takes to get his daughter back, and yet somehow I wasn't convinced here. I think part of the problem is that I found him trying too hard to be funny. And here's a crucial role that if anything should steal away the show from the two leads, but instead there's a guy whose voice rises and lowers from what seems like out of nowhere, and who tries desperately to look menacingly to a shoe-shiner, but really it's not very funny. I suppose it goes down to a matter of taste, but I really wasn't impressed by it. I do wonder if here it's William Wellman's direction. I feel as if there are too many things going wrong at this point that it boils down to writing and direction, and while there are story problems, this particular one seems like a direction problem. Wellman should've caught on that there was something lacking in Connolly's performance, but he didn't address it. And again, it could be me, but I can't help thinking if a more domineering actor would've been better, or even a funnier one.

One of the things looking at the characters and the actors cast in their roles has helped me see is how important getting the right cast truly is. Lombard, March, and Connolly are all fine actors, but somehow March and Connolly didn't serve their roles up to their utmost potential, which is a shame, because Nothing Sacred has a lot of promise. Unfortunately, I think it comes down on Wellman. Lombard is the only who makes the most of the script changes and truly gives a wonderful performance in which you can love Hazel, but March and Connolly weren't given great direction. It seems as if Wellman and David O Selznick really wanted to make a screwball comedy, but what I'm seeing more as I watch and read up on the film is that Nothing Sacred isn't a screwball comedy; it's really a satire. And that's really why the characters don't seem to come across the way they should.

The bravest kid who ever lived and the public that loves her

Had a couple of more viewings of Nothing Sacred, and decided I'd focus a bit on what I did like, some of the bits that I found clever. This film is often credited for its satirical portrayal of journalism, and while many of my prior viewings I did see it, I didn't think it was anything extra special. Sometimes satire doesn't work with me because it doesn't go far enough, it just shows what a situation is really like instead of going to the utmost ridiculous and sometimes even offensive. I thought perhaps because this film is from 1937 that it might've been different back then, but nowadays, with reality TV, the nonsensical really needs to go up a notch. Well I opened my eyes a bit wider this last time I watched the film and I appreciated its portrayal, not so much of journalism but of the people, in particular the New York public.

Yes, it's true, that this film is still relevant today. News outlets look for the next big story, the crazier the story, the bigger the headline. But what this film does best is that it parodies the public that reads such headlines and they get away with it. It's pretty brilliant, actually. This is the same public that is most likely watching the film, and yet does the audience ever really catch on that the film is poking fun at them? I don't think so, probably because everyone has to agree that the public's obsession with scandal is pretty ridiculous.

Some of the best examples and the irony of it all come in a montage of Hazel's arrival in New York City. There are many headlines, such as, "Hazel Sets New High Point of Courage," says Mayor, which is read by a construction worker on one of the many still-under-construction skyscrapers on a beam up high on above the city while lunching. Then there's also the headline of the poet working a new poem about Hazel, while she sits by, seemingly, bored, as if a muse for a poet needed to sit by like a artist's model. Carole Lombard as always pulls off with such great comedic flair her portrayal of Hazel. That clip is followed by another headline with the beginning of a sappy poem about Hazel being on the brink of death. And who reads this headline? None other than the fisherman selling fish, who wraps a fish up with said headlined newspaper and hands over the product to his customer. Then there's the scene that follows, announcing a luncheon that Hazel attended that day. Once it zooms out, a table of snacks is revealed with the sign underneath it, "All Kinds of Cheese and Bologna Our Specialty." I don't think these particular scenes stood out for me the first couple of times I viewed it, but this last time--perhaps because I was taking notes--they were so obvious and I thought great. This montage makes fun of both journalism, the readers, and the subjects all at once without saying a single word of dialogue. I particularly liked the fish and cheese clips, which really made me laugh this time around.

The montage is followed by the scene at the wrestling match in which Wally tells Hazel not to get too excited over the match because it was all fake. Then he goes on and says some line about the whole thing being rigged and the only thing true about it was the ring that the match was held in. This particular bit just doesn't seem to hit the mark as it should. I like the lines, perhaps it's the way Fredric March delivers them, but they don't seem to go far enough. But I like that this bit is mentioned, it's just something seems off for me. But I do like that a wrestling match and its ridiculousness is used to comment on the current situation. And watching the two wrestlers and the ref go at each other is enjoyable.

The Heroines of History bit was also funny, although not laugh out loud funny. What I did enjoy was that Hazel was being compared as a heroine and also to these particular "heroines." The best part is Katinka who saved Holland by putting her finger in the dyke and then shows which finger--the middle finger. Of course, the scene ends great when Hazel goes up to the stage, completely drunk and passes out. Everyone thinks this is it. Oliver Stone tells Dr Downer not to spare their feelings because they "go to press in fifteen minutes." And this event gets its own headline, "Hazel Collapses."

There's also the reveal of Hazel's deception. Stone finds out and then so does the Mayor and other leaders. Everyone is upset to find out, but of course they all have their reputations at stake. So what do they do? They all agree to let the deception continue, and a headline with Hazel's farewell is sent to press. Hazel vanishes leaving a letter to the people of New York, telling them she wants to die alone, "like an elephant." Then Hazel and Wally are seen on a ship, and a passenger nearly discovers them. Hazel kind of downplays the whole thing and calls Hazel Flagg a phony. The passenger is beyond herself and reprimands her for talking about such a heroic woman that way. I guess the joke's on the public.

The ending seems off to me, and I think that's mostly because it seems abrupt or something of the sort. Of course, because Ben Hecht walked out during filming, multiple writers went in to work on the script, with two of them working on the ending. So that might explain why the ending doesn't seem to flow well, especially because apparently David O Selznick wanted a "happy ending," which Hecht refused. I think all these writers is what makes this film weak to me, but even still I can see some bits of genius in it, it's just not fully explored or developed because there are multiple points of view.

Nothing Sacred hasn't really been a favorite of mine so far, but I'm starting to see what people really rave about. It took a closer look at the film for this realization to happen, but I was hoping it would, and it's always nice to see that you can understand at least one thing of what people rave about in the end. I really like the way in which this criticism, this parody of the whole bit about scandalous stories, how people are obsessed with other's misfortunes and how everyone feeds off it, how it was executed in some areas of the film. No one's innocent here, it's a vicious circle, but you never realize that the film could be making fun of you too. And that is pretty brilliant.

From the Land of the Living to the Obituaries

I re-watched the opening sequence of Nothing Sacred and I can't pinpoint down what it is or what's lacking in this sequence that initially didn't grab my attention. Now that I look at it more carefully, it's pretty well written and well thought out. I hate to say that it's the Technicolor, but I'm starting to think that's what's bugging me. In any case, the opening to this film does exactly what all films should do: establishes the tone and premise straightaway.

If I go further back from the opening scene, I really didn't like the opening credits. That Fredric March clay model freaked me out. If it was supposed to be funny, it was lost on me. I suppose though that through the credits, the tone was being set. But then once the credits are done, we're informed we're in New York, the land of skyscrapers, "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 ...." A criticism? Next there's a banquet where newspaper editor, Oliver Stone, played by Walter Connolly, is getting set to introduce the guest of honor. The first lines he says is that there are only two people qualified to introduce their guest, one is his "humble self" and the other his esteemed reporter from the Morning Star, Wally Cook, played by March--who was sleeping or drunk, I'm not sure which and I'm not sure why since it's never explained, and if it's supposed to be funny, again it was lost on me. The fact that right off the bat a character can attribute themselves as humble in front of a large audience tells you that this isn't a regular drama or even comedy. And while the dialogue from there on out isn't that memorable, there is that great moment when Hattie McDaniel enters the banquet with the police and her four children to denounce the Sultan, who's the honored guest played Troy Brown, as her husband.

So the joke is on the Morning Star that the Sultan is really a shoe shiner from Harlem. When Stone has words with the "Sultan," he gets all livid in what's supposed to be an exasperated rant. Connolly in It Happened One Night was simply great as the millionaire dad willing to go to great lengths to get his daughter back, but I didn't like some of his performance in Nothing Sacred. This isn't always true, though. Later on, when Wally goes to talk to Stone about doing the Hazel Flagg story, Connolly is fine playing the overstressed newspaper editor. It just seems that when he's to get all out of wits that it just kind of falls flat for me. But in any case, the fact that the Sultan turns out to be a shoe shiner puts the Morning Star in a bad light and that's the impetus needed for the story. Stone removes Wally from the Land of the Living and sends him, where else but to the Obituaries Department as punishment for disgracing the newspaper.

March at the Obituaries desk is funny. It seems there's no room for the department anywhere else, so there is a desk in between file cabinets and in front of stairs and a water cooler. And of course, it seems that everyone gets in the way, from people throwing empty cups over at Wally's desk to people going up the stairs and having bits of paper fly over and land all over him. It is obviously a horrible place for a writer to get any work done. Here, Wally has yet another motivation to make it up to Stone. Not only does he want to restore his reputation, but he also wants to get out of the Obituaries. He pleads his case to Stone, claims ignorance about the Sultan's true identity, and then presents the Hazel Flagg story, which is the story we're about to follow. Of course, Stone shakes on it and allows him to go and find the story. And Wally promises a great story or else Stone could put him in short pants and make him Marble Editor. So, although the two leads have yet to meet, the premise is set up, the motivations are there, and we know that this isn't a serious piece.

Personally, I think there's something missing from this piece. But if I'm honest, all the right ingredients are there. Perhaps it's a bit of putting it all together that doesn't go quite well for me. But in reality, the premise is set up right away, as well as the motivations behind the characters. It could've been zanier, especially when it comes to journalism--a shot at the competition at the banquet taking pictures and calling editors to stop the presses and dictating new headlines. As I mentioned, I didn't quite get what Wally was up to in the beginning of the film. I assumed he was drunk, but what did that have to do with anything? Was that to contrast the fact that he was the Morning Star's ace reporter? It would've been better if they would've followed through with that character trait then. Have Wally approach Stone in a drunken state and announce he's had an epiphany while having his seventh scotch and if he goes to Warsaw, Vermont, the newspaper's reputation will be redeemed. And of course Stone will go ahead with it because Wally is his ace reporter even if he is a drunk and he has nothing left to lose.

I liked the play on words "from the land of the living," and then placing Wally in the Obituaries Department. It is here, in this great frustrating scene, where apparently he discovers Hazel Flagg's story and decides to sell it to Stone, even if it is just to get out of that godawful place. Furthermore, I liked that in essence he does leave the land of the living to go in search of a story in Warsaw, Vermont.

Nothing Sacred has an opening sequence that hits all the right points and is well-written with some funny bits. Perhaps for a screwball comedy, a little more screwiness could've occurred, but overall the film does exactly what it should. We know this is a world in which the ordinary isn't the norm, and a problem is presented right away so that the characters are motivated to fix it. There's some play on words, and while one of the two leads is yet to grace the screen, she is introduced through dialogue with a promise that her story is the one we're about to discover.

Nothing Sacred (1937)

I really wanted to love Nothing Sacred. After all it has the lovely Carole Lombard, screenplay credit is given to Ben Hecht of His Girl Friday fame, and director duties are handled by the legendary William Wellman. But none of these people could make me love this film the way I wanted to, or even felt I should just because people rave on about it. Perhaps I missed something and eventually I might see the genius to it all, but as for right now, it's all right. The film has some funny/cuteish moments; I get that it's a criticism at journalism, that is still relevant today, but somehow it just wasn't a screwy as I thought it would be, let alone could be.

Lombard was great here in a different role than the screwball heroine of My Man Godfrey. She shows how great she is at comedy, delivering great lines, and just looking fabulous while blubbering about duping all of New York with her misdiagnosis of radium poisoning. I think part of her charm in all films and especially this one is that she's so down-to-earth. You kinda get the feeling that even though she is glamorous she's not gonna stick her nose up at the plebeians running about. And this down-to-earthness about her allows Lombard to play small-town Vermont resident Hazel Flagg so convincingly.

The hero to Lombard's heroine is played by Fredric March as Wally Cook, the New York newspaper reporter in need of a break. I've seen very, very little of March. In fact I had to do a quick check to see what I had seen him in, and it was only two other films. While I don't find anything exceptionally stand-out about him, he's not bad as Wally. He plays him well as the guy who falls for Hazel and at the same time heartbroken at the prospect of losing her to the radium poisoning. I like him more when Wally jumps into the river after Hazel. From there, he confesses his love and then there's the revelation of misdiagnosis and suddenly we start seeing a whole other side to Wally. And March pulls it off well. There's an image of March staring adoringly at Lombard after the firemen come for them. The look on his face and his smile are just amazing. I almost get the feeling that he's not given much room to stretch his acting chops throughout the film.

The fighting scene between Hazel and Wally is absolutely great. Many of the scenes throughout the film start out funny, but aren't developed enough to make them really laugh-out-loud funny. But this fighting scene is fully explored; it turns screwball completely. Hazel is at her wits' end trying to fool the new doctors from figuring out her misdiagnosis when Wally arrives and tries to help her by keeping her temperature up and having her break out in sweats. And how else to do it but by having a good ol' boxing match. The very idea is ridiculous and extreme, especially when he decks her out cold, but with such love too. She gets all worked up and feisty. When she comes to, she returns the favor. It's a great scene that I do no justice by retelling it and has to be seen instead to fully appreciate Lombard and March in their screwy glory.

When I first saw this film years ago, I didn't know why it didn't resonate with me. This time, I had read up a bit on it before viewing so going in I knew the reason why I might not fully enjoy it. Hecht was fired during production, you can read all the drama here. Then four different people were brought in to polish up the dialogue and write an "acceptable ending." This explained loads to me, and why the film seems off. In my opinion, the dialogue isn't as sharp as it should be, and in general the film isn't as ridiculous as it could be. Truth is, there are five different voices, plus the director's voice all talking at the same time.

Visually, I didn't care for the Technicolor. When I first saw this, I thought it had been originally black and white, and was colored in decades later. But no, that wasn't the case. The color palette just doesn't appeal to my eyes. I don't know how else to describe it but it almost has a sleepy look to it for me. It just doesn't compel me to watch, and that's kind of a problem, because I got distracted easily by other things. That being said, pace-wise, the film did go by quickly. It was never dragged out, but I guess overall it was just okay. There wasn't more and I wanted there to be more.

My initial impressions of Nothing Sacred are nothing spectacular, but I recognize that it is a good film overall. It does have some great acting and funny bits here and there. I wish there would have been more high antics, more sharper dialogue, but knowing a bit of the behind-the-scenes history, I think I understand why something seems missing, at least for me. Others find this film to be wonderful, and it certainly has great moments like the fighting scene between Lombard and March. I'm hoping upon closer look I'll discover the true beauty of Nothing Sacred.