Customer Reviews

Nothing Sacred

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Much like Marilyn Monroe, Carole Lombard continues to intrigue even decades after her own untimely death. An actress skilled at drama but showing a distinct preference for comedy, Lombard mixed her stunning beauty with a genuinely quick wit and a sharp, sarcastic intelligence. On screen, she was someone who, even at her most vulenerable, could still obviously take care of herself. Whereas the joy from watching Katharine Hepburn's screwball comedies came from seeing the haughty Hepburn brought down a notch or two, the joy of Lombard's films was watching her force the rest of the world to come up a few notches to meet her.

One of her most enduring (and endearing) turns came in the 1936 film Nothing Sacred. In a plot recycled in countless films since, Lombard is mistakenly told that she is dying. A small-town girl, Lombard's one wish is to see New York before she dies. Natrually, New York's high society welcomes her with open arms and Lombard, on account of her impending death, becomes the toast of the town. Of course, this is when Lombard finds out that she's not dying. This is where Nothing Sacred differs from nearly every other film ripped off from it since. Instead of humbly admitting the truth, once-innocent Lombard carries on the charade because she's grown to love the attention! Whereas in today's Hollywood, nervous studio execs would wonder if this made Lombard an unlikeable character for middle America, the classic screwball comedies of the '30s had the guts to simply go with their outrageous situations. Instead of simply going out of their way to conform to presumed audience expectations, filmmakers like Howard Hawks and William A. Wellman (who directed this film in a nicely breezy style) understood that if they simply went to the trouble to 1) find a good script and 2) cast talented performers like Lombard, audiences would be willing to follow their films wherever they led. To be honest, I suspect audiences haven't changed but unfortunately, filmmaking has. The screwball comedy is a genre that modern Hollywood tries to recreate every couple of years. Usually, they fail. Luckily, we have films like Nothing Sacred, My Man Godfrey, 20th Century, and others to remind us of how wonderful these films (and their stars) truly were.

Nothing Sacred is often referred to as a screwball comedy. Granted it has Carole Lombard the ultimate screwball heroine and other elements which suggest this form of comedy. However, it does not in the end so much resemble films like Bringing up Baby as it anticipates the later satires of Preston Sturges. Whichever way it is classified though, Nothing Sacred remains one of the best comedies of the thirties or indeed of any era.

This film, with its story of an apparently dying young woman, has an added poignancy for viewers watching it today. Lombard would be dead by 1942 and a real national heroine also with a navy warship named after her. The fiction at times seems to look ahead to the fact and thus the story becomes moving as well as funny.

The print of the film on this Lumivision DVD is on the whole good. There are some scenes especially at the beginning of the film where the early Technicolor print has been damaged. This means that there is some flickering and some separation of the colours. For the most part however, the film looks almost perfect with the vibrant colours so typical of thirties Technicolor. It is a joy to see Carole Lombard in colour and something of a surprise also, for her hair looks redder than expected. There are one of two slight jumps where the continuity of the film has been broken and this may account for the running time of the film, at 73 minutes, being slightly shorter than that listed in some sources.

The extras on this DVD are welcome but rather disappointing. The two Sennett short comedies are not very funny and really show that he had not moved on at all from his early pioneering days. These shorts are of interest mainly because they allow us to see a young and barely recognizable Lombard toiling away in her pre-stardom days. The DVD also includes a very damaged trailer for Nothing Sacred and some interesting if rather brief home movies with Lombard and Gable.

NOTHING SACRED has all the right elements to make it a classic screwball comedy. It's short (a mere 74 minutes), has tight and fast scenes, some out-of-the-blue and very odd occurences (as mentioned by others, the boy biting March is a riot), stars who aren't afraid to get silly or messy to produce the best laugh, and a strong, scathing message.

Ben Hecht's script is excellent, providing many belly laughs during the movie, and chuckles long after the VCR or DVD player has been shut off. Carole Lombard is her hilarious wacky self. I love black and white movies, but I must admit the Technicolor really allowed me to appreciate her full beauty. And as for Fredric March, well, I've always had a sweet spot for his acting, and he certainly didn't disappoint in this production. He and Lombard balance each other out perfectly. And, as was characteristic of the great comedies of the 30s, the supporting characters excel in their roles to round out a practically perfect comedy.

As far as the film itself, there were three aspects that I particularly enjoyed. One being the sincere, in your face view of male/female relationships. The bedroom fighting scene between March and Lombard is hilarious, one of the highlights of the movie, but would never make it on screen in any of today's movies. In today's movie world where you can't offend ANYONE (except Christians or Republicans), and you usually can't show any kind of physical humor toward women (yet it's OK to beat the guy to a pulp), the un-PC nature of this 60+ year old production gives it unexpected freshness.

A second uncommon point is the change in the romantic comedy formula. You know, it almost always goes boy meets girl, boy and girl are together for awhile having a jim-dandy time, boy and girl break up after tiff or misunderstanding of some sort, boy or girl makes a witty, cutesy speech to get them back together. This movie changes at least the last part of that formula to focus the last question from "How will they get back together?" to "How will they get out of the problem together?". Nice little twist.

A final interesting aspect was the deliberate hiding of Lombard and March's faces during most of their more intimate scenes. This is fitting considering the movie was a rail against the mass media's need to sensationalize and exploit every intimate thing (and the masses' willingness to happily join in the explotation).

If you enjoyed BRINGING UP BABY or IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, you're bound to enjoy this film. If you enjoy this film, but haven't seen the other two I mentioned, check them out! Chances are you won't be disappointed!

This is a great film, but do NOT buy the copy of the DVD with the airplane on the cover, it is TERRIBLE. Fuzzy, poor sound quality, cheap graphics on the outside of the DVD case. It looks like something tossed together by some company who makes bootleg copies from the t.v. I've never heard of the company (Timeless Classics), and on top of everything else it arrived scratched and loose in the case. Movie, five stars, DVD quality, MINUS 5.

Carole Lombard was an intelligent beautiful natural blonde, the greatest female Screwball comedian , highest paid actress, wife of Clark Gable and one of the most powerful woman in Hollywood during the 1930's until her untimely death in 1942. This beautifully restored DVD gives us a taste of Carole Lombard and the effect she had to audiences of the 30's. This was her only Technicolor movie she ever made. So sit back and watch her natural beauty and acting genius evolve on the screen. Fredric March as her co-star adds to this adorably humorous film.

In Summary: A Vermont girl Hazel Flagg (Lombard) in diagnosed in having radium poisoning (terminal). A hot shot New York Jounalist (March)reads about this in a newspaper and wants to use this event to raise his magazines popularity by sponsoring Hazel. Bringing her to New York City and presenting her with the "Keys to the City" and VIP status raises great public awareness. All the time using public sympathy to raise magazine sales.

Hazel finds out she was mis-diagnosed and reluctantly continues on with the scam. In the meantime March starts falling in love with Hazel and he wants her to rest and be comfortable until her end comes. As you can see this has a strange twist of events which is the main ingredient to the "SCREWBALL COMEDIES" of the 30's. Proving "Nothing's Sacred"!!!
The extras include: 2 early silent Lombard movies and Gable & Lombard home movies. This is a collectable "LIMITED EDITION" DVD to have.

This is one of the 15 all-time greatest screwball comedies of the 1930's...and the only one that was in Technicolor. Problem is that Selnick sold the rights to it (it's in the public domain) sometime in the 1940's and it's very hard to find a decent of print of this (despite the fact that The Museum Of Modern Art completely resotred the movie to it's original Technicolor splendor...but they stupidly won't release it on VHS or DVD to the public...) Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Walter Connolly, and Charles Winninger have never been better. Absolutely first rate film directed by William Wellman and screenplay by Ben Hecht. Worth buying, despite the medicore quality (and occasional blurriness).

On reading some of the reviews of Nothing Sacred here, I saw that while some folks found it just fine & dandy, others were disappointed. Being Carole Lombard fans, and knowing the reputation of this film, they expected more from it; they expected it to be funnier than it was.

The problem is that this film was, as pointed out by others, more of a satire than a screwball comedy. In many ways, it was almost a late `30s film version of MAD magazine, and, thus, many of the barbs are aimed at topical targets that would be completely missed by the average film viewer 70 years later, unless he or she was, like I, a bug on 1930's pop culture.

For example, the opening scene, which some here have referred to as uncomfortably close to "racist"; it features the black actor Troy Brown as a "Oriental Potentate" who is donating millions of dollars towards the establishment of a "temple of learning & culture". Rather than being an outrageous racial joke, it is a spoof on the then topical subject of Father Divine.

Shortly thereafter, the Fredric March character finds himself in Warsaw, Vermont, where he is mistreated and abused by sullen, silent, greedy, mossbacked Vermonters. While amusing in itself, it is more amusing when one realizes that this is Ben Hecht & director Wellman's acid take on Frank Capra's Mandrake Falls, from Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, where those same silent characters are portrayed as cute, cuddly, warm hearted but shrewd eccentrics, and the homely, lovely little towns of New England are held up as paragons of all American virtues where the rube locals are actually infinitely smarter and wiser and more knowing than the slick city folks from New York. In this film those towns are places to flee from, places you wouldn't even want to die in. There is likely also a political jibe here. Hecht, a liberal, was likely thumbing his nose at one of the two states not to vote for Roosevelt in the 1936 election by portraying its citizens as nasty, hidebound and grasping.

The radium poisoning plot device was based on an actual incident, then current, where women who had worked in a watch factory as teenaged girls, painting the numbers on illuminated watch dials, started dying of cancer.

The scene in the nightclub, saluting the "heroines of history" features Frank Fay, then still a well known comedian. Fay more or less originated the role of "MC" in a vaudeville or revue setting. Fay's MC characterization was a smarmy, unctuous, egotistical wise guy who made belittling comments about the acts he introduced or ushered off the stage (you can see Fay's act in all its glory in the Warner Brother's early talkie revue "Show of Shows"). Here he plays a caricature of that role, which made him a big star on Broadway. People in 1937 would have "gotten" this joke, but today people don't know Frank Fay and don't get the gag. This scene is also noteworthy as one of the earliest examples of a character flipping the bird in a Hollywood film, when the Dutch girl (played by Jinx Falkenburg, then America's most famous fashion model & cover girl) who saved her country by sticking her finger in the dike is told by Fay to "show us the finger." You can guess which finger it was.

There are dozens of examples of these topical jokes in this film, and I'll give one more. In the newspaper editor's office, Maxie Rosenbloom, playing his usual dim bulb character, is talking on the phone to his even dumber brother "Moe". He starts the conversation with "Hello, Moe..." I'm sure this joke, which would meet stony silence now, got screams in 1937, because it is a spoof of the famous "Hello, Flo" telephone scene from MGM's the Great Ziegfeld, the scene which won Luise Rainer the Academy Award for best actress in 1936.

To be fully appreciated, this film almost needs a booklet in which the then current pop culture references are explained. Still there is enough here to amuse even if one misses the topical jokes. But likely that's all this film will do--amuse. When one watches it now, knowing its reputation as one of the funniest comedies of the 30's, one should remember that that reputation comes from the original reaction to the film in 1937, when audiences would have gotten all the jokes.

This film classic takes cynicism to new heights in fun fashion as Carole Lombard gives a truly wonderful performance as a girl from a small town in Vermont who becomes the toast of New York thanks to jaded reporter Fredric March, and a bad medical diagnosis from her pal Charles Winninger. David O. Selznick produced and William A. Wellman directed what is not only a screen classic, but one of the finest moments in Carole Lombard's career.

Ben Hecht wrote the screenplay from a story by James H. Street and it is both a funny and cynical take on the newspaper business and the American public. Oscar Levant wrote the score and Raymond Scott and his Quintett add some swing music. Fredric March and Carole Lombard have a chemistry that makes this one a lot of fun.

Fredrick March is Wally Cook, a star reporter for the "New York Morning Star" who is demoted to the obituary page when his paper is taken for a free ride by a man passing himself off as a Sultan. When he turns out to be only a bootblack, Cook feels the heat from his boss, Oliver Stone (Walter Connolly). Connolly is fine as the editor with egg on his face. Stone has a heart, but only if you're willing to blast for it!

Wally sees a chance to get back in Oliver's good graces when he spots a short story about a young girl from the small town of Warsaw, Vermont, who has been diagnosed with radium poisoning and has only a short time to live. He heads for Warsaw to bring back, and exploit, Hazel Flagg, cut down in her prime.

Carole Lombard, of course, is Hazel Flagg. The reason Hazel is crying isn't because she's dying, but rather because Dr. Enoch Downer (Charles Winninger) has just told Hazel he made a mistake and she's going to have to remain in Warsaw after all. Hazel was going to use the 200 dollars you get from dying in Warsaw to see the world, and get out of the small town. Winninger is a hoot as the doctor who drinks his poison out of a black jug and is still upset with not winning an essay contest in Wally's paper.

When Wally shows up and wants to take Hazel back to New York, she sees her chance to get out, and talks her friend Enoch into going with her under the ruse that she really is dying. As she tells Enoch: "It's startling to be brought to life twice, and each time in Warsaw!" Once they travel by plane to New York, which is a new experience for both Hazel and Enoch, the real fun begins.

Lombard is sweet and adorable as Hazel lives it up as though she were really dying and in the process, thanks to a series of stories by Wally, becomes the toast of New York. Wally begins to feel bad, however, and finds himself falling for Hazel. There is a romantic scene as they go sailing and Lombard is lovely here. Hazel is beginning to fall for Wally as well, and is starting to feel bad about the charade.

Lombard is hilarious as she gets plastered at a casino and passes out before the devoted crowd. The cynicism of Ben Hecht's script really shines as Oliver, standing over Hazel, inquires from Wally about her condition: "Don't spare my feelings. We go to press in 15 minutes." There are many such moments contrasted against the sweetness of Hazel Flagg.

Once a team of real doctors are brought in to examine Hazel, the gig is up. Hazel loves Wally and decides to fake her suicide with Enoch's help in order to save his career. Wally doesn't care that it was all fake, however, and in a rush to save her, ends up knocking her in the river where he almost drowns himself, because he can't swim. Lombard in a fireman's hat and wet clothes will leave no doubt that she was one of the screen's most beautiful actresses, as well as one of its finest comedians.

There is a hilarious fight scene between Wally and Hazel as he tries to give her symptoms of pnemonia that has a romantic glow despite the cynicism involved. The only way to make things work for both Hazel and the paper, however, is for her to go away alone to die. Wally may have to leave also if he wants to join her on the cruise to "death" she's taking with Enoch.

This was a film originally in early technicolor. Prints vary as to color quality, the Kino version being the best I've seen. All are watchable, however, and this film is just as wonderful, perhaps even more so, if you turn off the color and simply watch it in glorious black and white. Lombard would give her life for her country on an Indiana war bond tour and this film is a shining example of the magic she left behind. You do not want to miss it.

I won't add to the many words said about this wonderful film. This is just to comment briefly on the picture quality of the GoodTimes release of the movie. The rating is simply for the DVD, not the film.

For a public domain title, sharpness is a little better than expected. I was pleased to see a some film grain over the Selznick logo. Contrast is pretty good, if a little thick - however, blacks are black and whites white. Colour, as expected, is the weakest hand - there's little sense of the glow that early 3-strip Technicolor possessed. But it is not dreadful.

Although I have not seen it, by reputation the Image DVD release is the best for colour.

This article: www.cinetech.com/html/news/mm800.html
details the restoration work done on the film. Unfortunately, to date, this has not been released on DVD.

If you're looking for the very best version of NOTHING SACRED, then wait for the restoration to play on TV and take a DVD-recording (if you're lucky enough to have a DVD recorder). This purchase is worth considering in the mean time and, after all, it is very cheap.

I consider Nothing Sacred to be one of the best screwball comedies of the 1930's. What is amazing is that the themes so nastily betrayed in this film are so relevant today! Nobody is safe from the director's (William Wellman) and screenwriter's (Ben Hecht) acid observations of the human race. Everybody is corrupt in this movie! This is a film that deserves "classic" status! The performances are wonderful and the dialogue has more memorable one-liners than most films being released today! Watch this movie!