Nothing Sacred

Absolutely hilarious screwball comedy. A hotshot newspaper reporter(Fredric March)tries to get in the good graces of his boss(Walter Connolly)by exploiting the "imminent" death of an ailing young woman(Carole Lombard). By way of newsprint the doomed young lady becomes the toast of New York City until her health situation is revealed as a hoax. Supporting cast includes: Frank Fay, Margaret Hamilton and Charles Winninger. Lombard is wonderful in the role of the ailing/doomed Hazel Flagg from Vermont. My favorite scene is when March is walking down the sidewalk and a small boy bolts through a gated fence to bite him on the back of the leg and scurry back to safety. This knee-slapping comedy is directed by William A. Wellman and its a crime not to watch.

William Wellman was really a helluva director. Anyone that can do a movie like this, and make "The Ox-Bow Incident" too, must have been born to direct.

Coming in at a breezy 75 minutes, "Nothing Sacred" is still very funny on several levels, for several different reasons. Plot does not matter as much as execution, and how you deliver a line matters more than the line itself.

Frederic March and Carole Lombard are perfect, and the supporting cast is just as good, especially the actor who played 'Oliver Stone', March's frustrated boss.

Wellman does unconventional things like make the actors faces be hidden by a tree branch, practically unheard of in that day and age. But the fact of the matter is, that sometimes people are not perfectly framed in life, so maybe they shouldn't be in the movies - at least not as a rule. The first time you get a good look at Lombard, she has shaving cream on her face from kissing a man who is shaving - also not the normal star-moment you might expect.

Just terrific. 9/10.

A newspaper does a series of stories on a dying young woman, turning her into a celebrity, but the problem is she's not dying. This breezy comedy is enhanced by the presence of the incomparable Lombard, one of the greatest comediennes to come out of Hollywood. Although mainly known for his dramatic roles, March was quite capable of doing comedy, as he shows here. The two stars work well together in this enjoyable farce. Wellman also was not known for comedies, but he directs with a light touch here. The only quibble is that this ends somewhat abruptly. This is an early Technicolor film, although there apparently are not any good surviving prints.

Some of the recent comments are wholly unjust to this movie. The point of the film is to make fun of phony sentimentalism, sanctimonious posturing, and the general tendency of the media to put profit ahead of grace, dignity, and the simple truth. Carole Lombard is not only beautiful, but an exceedingly talented actress (in this and everything else she did). The writing cuts to the bone, exposing hypocrisy in all its forms. The film is as fresh today, and is as relevant to the culture, as it was when it was made. As for the notion that a movie made in 1937 offends someone's sense of what is politically correct in 2004, and therefore deserves criticism, give me a break.

The team of David O. Selznick producer, William Wellman director, and Fredric March leading man, after having had a big hit the year before with A Star Is Born, teamed up again to create one of the great screwball comedies of the Thirties in Nothing Sacred.

The inspiration for this film comes from the fertile imagination of Ben Hecht best known previously for co-authoring another newspaper classic, The Front Page. Hecht takes it a step further and while the Morning Post reports the news faster and better than its rivals, it doesn't create the news. Here the media is satirized for creating a celebrity.

Poor Carole Lombard as Hazel Flagg, country girl from rural Vermont who is misdiagnosed by her country doctor Charles Winninger as having incurable radiation poisoning. It's a small news item over the wire services.

But when hotshot reporter Fredric March gets a hold of it, he convinces his editor Walter Connolly to build up the story by bringing Lombard to New York and ballyhooing her into celebrity status. Lombard and Winninger by now know an error in diagnosis was made, but who can turn down an all expense paid trip to New York? The story just mushrooms until it gets away from any kind of control.

The difference sometimes between comedy and drama is often so slight as to be imperceptible. There's not much difference between Fredric March's character in Nothing Sacred and Kirk Douglas's in Ace in the Hole. Both are down on their luck newspaper people looking for a comeback and both exploit a story to their own ends, March comically and Douglas tragically. But the plots are more similar than one realizes.

Even today we still hunger for our celebrities some of whom are nothing but professional celebrities. The sad life of Anna Nicole Smith is proof of that.

When you think about Anna Nicole Smith though Nothing Sacred appears dated it actually has a very timeless message about the power of media to create and destroy.