Design for Scandal

Walter Pidgeon is a reporter who agrees to do some dirty work for his boss in "Design for Scandal," also starring Rosalind Russell and Edward Arnold.

After Arnold takes a beating in his divorce case, presided over by Russell, Pidgeon offers to help him out in return for getting his job back (when he thought he was going to die, he told off the boss - always a mistake).

His assignment is to devise a scandal involving the judge so that his boss can have her removed from the bench. Pigeon follows the lady on her vacation and makes his play, enlisting the help of his girlfriend to build an alienation of affections case.

This is a very mild comedy, highly predictable, and this type of role wasn't Pidgeon's forte. He's quite handsome in the role, but the part called for someone like Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable - an attractive, fast-talking rogue.

Russell, like Celeste Holm and sometimes Katharine Hepburn, played these strong career women since her beauty was not conventional. She's very good, but the theme is always the same, isn't it - a successful career is fine but you're deluding yourself.

What you really want to do is take off those tailored suits and get a man - because being a smart and successful woman will never win you anything important.

It all gets a little tired, but it does give me some insight into why my mother turned out the way she did.

DESIGN FOR SCANDAL (1941) Walter Pidgeon, Rosalind Russell Lively Script. Pidgeon orchestrates a scandal to help his boss get even with a judge (Russell) for a ruling in a divorce case. Pidgeon, a fixer/reporter (more like an experienced con-man) is an amoral opportunist. Russell, the judge, is cold and emotionally walled-off from the world as Pidgeon tries to seduce and compromise her.

In my opinion Pidgeon deserved to be indicted despite how glib and affable he was.

Pidgeon's performance is adequate, he's likable as always. Russell is also adequate and beautiful. But I was distanced from immersion into the story by both of their slightly wooden line delivery. I kept getting the sense they were speaking lines, acting. The script was snappy, maybe that was the problem? Too snappy for ordinary people to be saying.

I think that's one of the problems with these movies from the 40's that have such great writing. It undermines the credibility of our character identification. Who speaks like that? Who is that smart, that quick? Yet it's the same thing we enjoy so much, the thing that makes such movies rise above the rest.

So, the answer is to have characters that the audience can believe are smart enough to be delivering such quick-witted comebacks.

Also, the deliveries from the two lead characters here sounded a bit overly rehearsed.

I liked this movie from the start and as it developed but drifted away emotionally during the last act.

Lots of wonderful supporting cast including the great (and aging) Edward Arnold, the ubiquitous Guy Kibbee, and Leon Belasco (playing a sculptor).

(There may be Spoilers) Zany and sophisticated 1941 screwball comedy that has big city newspaper mogul J.M "Cuddle Baby" Bair, Edward Arnold, enlisting his former ace reporter "Smilin Jeff" Sherman, Walter Pigeon, to do a job for him. "Cuddle Baby" wants Jeff to get the goods on the Judge who just threw the book on him giving his gold digging 22 year former party girl wife Adele, Mary Beth Bowman, a $250,000.00 settlement in his divorce suite.

J.M feeling like a fool to be taken to the cleaners by Judge Cornelia Porter, Rosalind Russell, tries to get her transfered out of her job presiding over family matters in divorce court, so his appeal against her decision would be handled by a judge that he can buy off. J.M then find out that she's just been elected to a six year term and has an impeccable record as a jurist. Jeff comes up with this scheme to get Judge Porter involved in a love triangle with him being the effected party who's affections are stolen from his future wife Dotty, Jean Rogers, by the Family Courts straight as a arrow Judge Cornelia Porter.

working all the angles Jeff finds out that the Judge is an armature sculpture and artist. Finding she's going to the Cape Cod artist colony to spend the summer Jeff get's a local sculpture from there Alexander Roaul, Leon Belasco, a job back in NYC to paint the JM Blair Building as Jeff moves into his studio and in on Judge Porter trying to impress her with his, really Raouls, art works.

Jeff at first trying to entrap Judge Porter by romancing her starts to fall in love with the judge. Soon he scuttles his plans that he concocted with both Dotty and his boss J.M Blair. J.M is outraged with Jeff for leaving him out in the cold and having his "fiancé" and "future wife" Dotty stick "Cuddle Baby" Blair with a $5,000.00 tab, plus all the furs and jewelry she could buy with his checkbook, to go along with Jeff's insane scheme.

With the case now going to court Blair knows that he'll lose, again, in the courts when the "other woman" in Jeff's life Judge Porter takes the stand. Jeff instead of accusing her of destroying his "marraige", that's still some two months away, with Dotty admits that he's in love with Judge Porter and thus has the entire case against her thrown out with now "Cuddle Baby" Blair, as well as Jeff, facing time behind bars for trying to frame the good and incorruptible Judge Porter.

While all this is going on Blair came to an agreement with his former wife Adele to drop her divorce settlement against him for a lump sum of $150,000.00 saving him almost $100,000.00 in divorce payments. Later Blair find out to his shock and surprise that she was to marry a rich old oil geezer, John D. Rockerfeller Jr?, the next day after she already cashed his check! If Blair waited one more day his divorce payments would have been immediately halted since she was to be married and wouldn't be entitled to them!

Judge Porter, or Cornelia, finally realizes that she's in love with the buffoonish but handsome Jeff Sherman forgets all his zany antics and tricks that he played on her by now knowing that his heart not his brain was in the right place but not always at the right time.

Delightful romantic comedy with a plot that is, basically, a rehash of "Libeled Lady" (1936), beautifully done with nice cast. Rosalind Russell appears as a judge — as she would again in "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" (1947) — but also as a career woman whose repressed femininity makes her easy game for unscrupulous ladies' man Walter Pidgeon. That particular feature adds interest to the interaction between both characters and even, in a way and to a certain extent, gives this unpretentious little comedy a sort of an edge on the aforementioned classic screwball comedy. The chemistry between the leading couple is perfect and both are great in their respective parts. Arnold is also effective in another of his roles as a ruthless businessman (here a newspaper editor), the kind of characterization he played to perfection in several Frank Capra's comedies. Famous 'Vera Vague' (Barbara Jo Allen) plays a bit part, and the character that made the actress's fame is credited under hers (between parentheses) in the main titles.

Rosalind Russell day on TCM ! in this one, she's judge Porter, hearing the divorce proceedings between the Blairs (Eddie Arnold, Marybeth Hughes). she rules in favor of the wife, but mostly because Mr. Blair couldn't keep his big mouth shut, and kept yelling out in court. so when the judge goes on vacation, Blair sends his reporter Jeff (Walter Pidgeon) after her to get her to lower the alimony. Jeff even researches the judge's past, so he will have things in common. it's all way over the top, and overdone. so much effort put in by Pidgeon/Jeff, and the judge rebuffs him at every opportunity. and a precocious, troublesome tot Freddie thrown in, for more laughs. Bobby Larson was in a couple Peppers films, and was even in Bank Dick, with W.C. Fields. and Russell would be nominated for four oscars, but sadly, not for probably her best known work "His Girl Friday", which she had just done the year before. Directed by Norman Taurog, who had already won the oscar for Skippy. Design for Scandal story seems to be written by Lionel Houser; died quite young at age 41. this one is just okay. looks like it was released just around the time of pearl harbor, probably hurting its success. too bad they didn't give Guy Kibbee more lines (the Superior court judge). he could always jazz up a film.