Nothing Sacred

source: Nothing Sacred

Frederick March is a reporter on a New York paper, desperate for a feature story. He digs up a notice of a young woman in Vermont, Carole Lombard, who has been diagnosed as terminally ill with radium poisoning. Not knowing the diagnosis was a mistake made by a bibulous rural doctor, March rushes to Vermont and offers the "dying" woman a trip to New York, all expenses paid, for a last fling. Lombard has discovered the mistaken diagnosis but, in thrall to the prospect of a vacation in the Big Apple, agrees to go along. She's exploited by the newspaper and becomes a celebrity. She gets the keys to the city for her bravery. People weep at her name. The governor endorses a "Hazel Flagg Day." Everything Lombard does -- such as getting drunk and passing out at a big affair in her honor -- is interpreted as a sign of her mysterious but debilitating illness. A quartet of European doctors finally uncover her real state, which has more to do with radiance than radium. She and March have fallen in love. Lombard leaves a farewell note to the city, claiming she is going off to die alone ("like an elephant") and the couple escape on a ship. I'd heard this was an outstanding screwball comedy of the sort common in the mid and late 30s, so the first time I saw it, years ago, I thought I had caught the wrong movie because it wasn't very funny. I've just seen it again and it's still not funny. It's rushed, yes, and sometimes a little hysterical, and everyone involved tries for boffo laughs, but it doesn't clear the bar set by such other examples of the genre as "Bringing up Baby" or "It Happened One Night" or "The Palm Beach Story." I hate to say it, because so much effort is on display and because Carole Lombard scintillates in the role of the deceptive but fundamentally decent Hazel Flagg. But Frederick March, a fine actor in serious parts, is miscast. Somebody like Clark Gable or Cary Grant is called for -- an earnest extrovert. The funniest scene, I gather, is when March knocks Lombard unconscious in the bedroom. Maybe I'm becoming patriarchal but it doesn't make me laugh to see a woman punched in the jaw. Well, maybe my ex wife. As it is, the funniest scenes involve ancillary characters like German doctors and Scandinavian firemen, who are on screen collectively for about ten minutes. The plot itself has a lot of built-in tension because, after all, both Lombard and the audience know she isn't sick. So how and when will the charade be brought to a finish? Actually, it leaves a thoughtful person a little uncomfortable because what we have here is an example of an aborted rite of passage. A rite of passage marks the transition of the subject from one status to another. The ceremonies, large and small, surrounding a death are part of a rite of passage, a shift from the status of "living" to that of "dead." People go to a lot of trouble to prepare for an impending death. And when the doomed person refuses to die -- maybe perks up and remits -- the ritual is aborted. The same thing happens when one of the parties cancels a wedding at the last minute, after the invitations have been sent out and the presents have arrived. It leaves a hole in the scenario. It's like watching a Charlie Chan movie with the last ten minutes missing. The audience is, of course, happy that Hazel Flagg is alive and well in Tahiti, and yet underneath it all they feel a little CHEATED. Anyway, I understand that many viewers enjoyed this immensely and don't want to discourage anyone from watching it, but I thought it was interminable instead of terminal. Not a laugh in a cartload.

As a huge classic movie fan and a huge Carole Lombard fan, it pains me to say this, but I really didn't like this movie. I wanted to like it. Heck, I expected to like it, but I didn't. Lombard and March gave good performances, but I think the main problem was that I found the movie boring. It didn't hold my attention. The movie is quite short, but it seemed to just plod along. The plot of the movie is interesting (small town girl fakes illness to see the big city and then falls in love with the man she's deceiving), but the execution could have been so much better. That said, I'm glad I saw the movie. It's Lombard's only film in color and that alone was worth my time.

An unscrupulous reporter takes advantage of a small town girl's supposed imminent death in order to manipulate the public and gain more sales. Lombard however is not that imminent to death and she turns the tables and takes advantage of the situation. Plays as well today as more than sixty years later which proves that while the people may have changed the media stays the same. A good biting satire. on a scale of one to ten..8

Nothing Sacred isn't just boring, its aggravating to watch. None of the characters are endearing. I don't mean likable because there can be unlikable yet endearing characters. Characters the movie makes you hate but still want to root for them. Nothing Sacred does not do that. Fredric March is supposedly the best reporter in the city who makes one career ruining mistake. Then in an attempt to redeem himself he then immediately makes the exact same mistake. He rushes into another feel good story without doing any research. Hazel Flagg is meant to be seen as a pitiable girl in over her head but acts like a spoiled child. Dr. Enoch Downer can't make up his mind between being a reluctant participant or complete imbecile. And the movie's message is that newspapers always lie to get a story and readers are foolish and selfish to latch onto sob stories. The worst part of it all is that this screwball comedy just isn't funny. Site gags and clever wit are very rarely seen and even more rarely successful. The final joke of the movie is the doctor waking up and thinking the hotel he is in has sunk underwater because he hasn't realized he's on a boat. That joke belongs in a Looney tunes cartoon. Although hats off to Nothing Sacred for being the first color comedy.

This 1937 screwball comedy is perhaps the only Technicolour film of it's genre, and what a fun, exuberant ride it is! Reliable 30's leading man Fredric March stars as Walter Cook, a reporter at the New York newspaper 'The Morning Star' who will do anything for a good story. After a botched attempt to pass off a African-American commoner as the Sultan Of Brunei, Wally, desperate to redeem himself, travels to Vermont to cover the last remaining weeks of Hazel Flagg's (the wonderful Carole Lombard) radium-poisoning-interrupted life. The trouble is, Hazel's not really sick at all- she was initially misdiagnosed by her bumbling Vermont doctor. Still, Hazel jumps at Cook's offer for her to take a last-gasp trip to the Big City. She's a big hit with the City as the new 'bleeding heart' story. As the pair inevitably fall in love, Hazel's conscience starts to get the better of her and things start to unravel very fast. Lombard and March! What can I say...they are terrific together! Carole's bright and gorgeous, this is one of her best performances. She's slightly too glamorous to be a small-town Vermont gal, but she's very believable in the role otherwise. As one of the best comic actresses ever to grace the screen, she lights up and gives wit to every scene. March is likable, attractive and does comedy very well. The pair share numerous classic moments together, particularly in the mock 'fight' scene. They, IMO, rank up there with Hepburn-Grant and Gable-Colbert as one of the great screwball pairings. The colourful supporting players are a lark, too. Watch for the lady better known as The Wicked Witch Of The West, Margaret Hamilton, early in the film as one of the many seemingly 'backward' residents of Vermont. Yep, anyone? Walter Connolly is priceless as the stressed newspaper boss Oliver Stone. Applause must go to Billy Barty, as the young Vermont boy who bites March on the calf, for providing possibly the most spontaneous and funny moment in the entire film. Aside from the fun and games, this is a wonderful satire on both the values of modern society and the corruption of truth by the media. From the opening shots of busy New York night-life (watch for the very prominent Coca-Cola sign) and Big-city skyscrapers obviously inspired by King Vidor's silent 'The Crowd', we know that we are getting a screwball comedy with a message. Aside from certain racist and sexist elements that the modern viewer may find slightly off putting, this film holds up very well. The only problem with this film is the rather slow opening sequence. The laughs only really flow fast and freely when we arrive at Vermont and Lombard makes her entrance, 15 minutes into the film. The colour is slightly dodgy (or is it just my copy?), which is understandable as it is one of the early colour films. Another one of those 30's comedies that didn't have to rely on toilet humour or sex jokes in order to be entertaining. My rating: 8/10

The incandescent Carole Lombard was simply the most beautiful comedienne during Hollywood's golden era of the 1930's. In fact, the one conceit of the film is how her stunning glamour, especially in the newspaper photos, seems at odds with the innocent small-town girl she portrays in this 1937 screwball comedy classic directed in lickety-split fashion by the two-fisted William "Wild Bill" Wellman. Lombard never let her beauty get in the way of being funny, and her effervescent manner makes her seem dotty enough to make the crazy situations she gets into believable. Moreover, the film's constant tweaking at the public obsession over a young woman's impending death predates the concept of reality programming by nearly 70 years. For a movie that clocks in at just 75 minutes, the far-fetched story is fairly dense but clips by without a wasted moment. In brief, Wally Cook is a New York tabloid reporter relegated to the obituaries after his most recent story is exposed as fake. Seeking to rehabilitate his career, he uncovers a story on Hazel Flagg, a woman in rural Vermont dying of radium poisoning. When he arrives in her town, she suddenly learns that her diagnosis was a mistake and that she is not dying at all. However, feeling constrained by her small town existence, Hazel pretends to be terminally ill in order to accept Wally's offer to take her to New York City. In true 1930's fashion, New York pours its heart out to her making her an instant media celebrity. Hazel starts to feel guilty over the misdirected attention, and of course, Wally and Hazel find themselves falling in love amid all the deception and inevitable chaos. Just coming off his classic dramatic turn in the most cohesive version of "A Star Is Born", stalwart leading actor Fredric March gamely plays the initially cynical Wally with the right everyman demeanor, though I kept thinking how much more at home William Powell or Cary Grant would have been in the role. The lovable Lombard makes Hazel a sublime comic creation even though the character is basically a selfish charlatan. They have a classic sparring scene near the end where each lands a punch on the jaw of the other. Familiar character actors complete the cast with Walter Connolly in constipated frustration as Wally's constantly boiling editor-in-chief (aptly named Oliver Stone), Charles Winninger properly pixilated as Hazel's fraud of a doctor, and familiar faces like Sig Ruman, Margaret Hamilton, Hattie McDaniel and Hedda Hopper in little more than walk-on parts. Wellman displays an idiosyncratic way with the camera, for instance, focusing on Lombard's ankles as she flirts with March in an open crate or having a tree branch cover their faces during a key dialogue scene. Unsurprisingly, the director of "Wings" and "Lafayette Escadrille" inserted a scene aboard a plane to show off the Manhattan skyline. One of the first movies filmed in Technicolor, it still looks pretty good though there is subtle graininess and typical for a film of this age, a constant popping noise exists in the background. Not as good as "My Man Godfrey" nor as funny as "Bringing Up Baby", "Nothing Sacred" is still great entertainment and a rare opportunity to see the luminous Lombard at full star wattage.

A film which has Fredric March bitten in the calf by a toddler who subsequently runs askance like a rabid rabbit can't be but excellent. Not to mention Carole Lombard's dazzling performance (I can't remember having seen her mediocre anyway) : how fun and beauty reach a perfect match ! The colors, as translated on the DVD, are fragile and uncertain, which adds a certain poetry to that otherwise quirky comedy. As for the "meaning" ! Some of the front pages devoted to the supposedly terminally ill Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard) might have inspired all the drivel that was supposed to be a tribute to unfortunate Di. The details of the film are also of the neatest sort. One striking example is the Heroines on horses show (another tribute to the "dying" Hazel Flagg- five minutes short, featuring Lady Godiva, Helen of Troy, Pocahontas and some others, and managing to be as irrelevant and funny as can be. Is the secret of these comedy, where beauty is a showcase of fun, lost for good ? The sublimely "dark and handsome" March, the deliciously "classically blonde" Lombard revel in ridicule, and that's a feat no modern comedian seems able to perform. Highly recommendable !

After reading so many good reviews over the years for this comedy, I was disappointed when I actually saw it. It really was not particularly funny. In fact, I would have to say it was rather dull, and not up to the standards of Lombard's other films. The "heroine", Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard) was intended by the scriptwriters to be sympathetic, but I notice that she carries on with her fraudulent illness despite her occasional attacks of conscience. I find it impossible to like such a person or to care about her, and I thought Frederick March's character to be a fool for wanting to marry a person willing to lie to the world for fame and gifts.

"Nothing Sacred" has been remade in whole or part many times but no version comes close to the original 1937 screwball comedy starring Frederic March and Carole Lombard. Directed by William Wellman with a script by Ben Hecht, Nothing Sacred is more topical today than it was then. There's been a good deal written on this board about the political incorrectness of it: racism, drunkenness, physical abuse, stereotyping. It's true, there's something to offend everyone. Instead of judging everything by today's enlightened standards, I prefer to notice that yes, things were different in the past and then move on to the wonderful, witty script, the very modern topic, the great performances, the early, muted color, Lombard's outfits, the old airplane and the scenes of New York as it was in all its glory in the 1930s. March is Wally Cook, a reporter in hot water for writing about the Sultan of Brunai who in reality is a regular Joe working in New York with a wife who identifies him while he's making pronouncements. Wally goes to Vermont to hunt down a story about a woman dying of radium poisoning and finds her in the person of Hazel Flagg (Lombard). Hazel has just gotten some very bad news from her doctor (Charles Winninger) - she's not dying. The diagnosis was a mistake. She had hopes of taking a trip out of Vermont that was offered to her and asks the doctor to keep the new diagnosis of health quiet. Soon after, she meets Wally, who wants to bring her to New York for a last fling at the expense of the paper, which will follow her until her last poisoned breath. Hazel agrees and takes the doctor with her. At first, she has a blast with only the occasional twinge of guilt. Then a German specialist is brought in and blows Hazel's scam all to hell. One of the comments had it right - this story predates reality shows by something like 63 years. Hazel, like so many today, is an ersatz celebrity, famous for being famous. What will never change is milking a subject for profit until it's dry. Nothing Sacred has some hilarious scenes and great lines, including the big fight scene in the hotel when Wally tries to make Hazel seem ill by forcing her to fight with him in order to sweat and raise her pulse rate. The nightclub scene is a riot. Lombard is beautiful and wears some stunning outfits and gowns, a gift to Hazel from the newspaper. She was a very adept actress with a wonderful sense of comedy. How sad that she is in a film about dying young and would do so five years later at the age of 34. She and March do a great job together - he's normally not known for his comedy but does well here. He approach to Wally is serious and he plays Wally's intensity and affection for Hazel for all it's worth. Connelly as his editor is fabulous, as is Winninger as the doctor who drinks his way through New York. Nothing Sacred has been a musical, Hazel Flagg, and remade as Living it Up (with Jerry Lewis as Homer Flagg). Most recently, the general plot was reworked as Last Holiday. See the original in the screwball comedy genre which is, alas, no more.