Main Cast: Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Walter Connolly
Release Year: 1936
Country: US
Run Time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy, and William Powell star in this crackling screwball comedy about a cut-throat newspaper editor's scheme to prevent a libel suit that ends up exploding in everybody's face. Tracy plays Warren Haggerty, the managing editor of a newspaper that mistakenly prints a story declaring the rich Connie Allenbury (Myrna Loy) has stolen away another woman's husband. Connie retaliates by suing the paper for $5 million. This happens right before Warren is about to marry his fiancee Gladys (Jean Harlow). As he has done several times in the past, Warren delays the wedding in order to stop the libel suit. Warren hires Bill Chandler (William Powell), a former employer who is desperate for a job, to marry Gladys in name only and then court Connie. That way, Gladys can sue Connie for alienation of affections and get Connie to agree to drop her lawsuit if Gladys will drop hers. Bill hops an ocean liner to accompany Connie and her father (Walter Connolly) back to the United States, but along the way Bill and Connie fall in love and Bill tries to convince Gladys to drop her suit so it won't hinder his relationship with Connie. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Review
While Libeled Lady is not one of the greatest screwball comedies, it is still a good, very funny representative of the genre, and contains a truly classic fishing sequence. That it misses making it into the top tier is due to minor problems with the script and direction. The former feels a little underdeveloped, as if the four credited screenwriters were too busy concentrating on bits of business and funny lines to devote enough attention to fully developing the characters and justifying the turns of plot. Jack Conway's direction is also a little too consistently raucous, robbing some of the sequences of their impact. However, this is a small price to pay, and the lightning pace certainly has its own benefits. Of the film's luminous quartet, Spencer Tracy might seem the odd man out, but he, in fact, gives a marvelously outsized performance and is unafraid to appear out-and-out silly when the occasion calls for it. William Powell is silky smooth, using his self-deprecating humor to good effect, and Myrna Loy is both sassy and sophisticated. Jean Harlow is vibrant, working her special magic on the proceedings and proving that few actresses of the period could equal her way with a one-liner. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Cedric Gibbons - Art Director, William Horning - Art Director, Dolly Tree - Costume Designer, Jack Conway - Director, Frederick Y. Smith - Editor, Dr. William Axt - Composer (Music Score), Norbert F. Brodin - Cinematographer, Lawrence Weingarten - Producer, Edwin B. Willis - Set Designer, George Oppenheimer - Screenwriter, Howard Emmet Rogers - Screenwriter, Wallace Sullivan - Screenwriter, Maurine Watkins - Screenwriter
After she is falsely accused of breaking up a marriage, the wealthy Connie Allenbury (Myrna Loy) sues the New York Evening Star newspaper for $5,000,000 for libel. Desperate, Warren Haggerty (Spencer Tracy), the chief editor, turns to former reporter and suave ladies' man Bill Chandler (William Powell) for help.
Bill figures that if he can maneuver Connie into being alone with him when his wife shows up, the suit will have to be dropped. Chandler is not married, so Warren volunteers his long-suffering fiancée, Gladys Benton (Jean Harlow), over her loud protests.
Bill arranges to return to America from England on the same ocean liner as Connie and her father J. B. (Walter Connolly). He pays some men to pose as reporters and harass Connie at the dock, so he can "rescue" her and become acquainted. On the sea voyage, Connie initially treats him with contempt, assuming that he is just the latest in a long line of fortune hunters after her money, but Bill gradually overcomes her suspicions.
Complications arise when Connie and Bill actually fall in love. They get married, but Gladys decides that she prefers Bill to a marriage-averse newspaperman and interrupts their honeymoon to reclaim her husband. Bill reveals that he found out that Gladys' Mexican divorce wasn't valid, but then Gladys tops him. She got a second divorce, and she and Bill are actually man and wife. Fortunately, Connie and Bill manage to show Gladys that she really loves Warren.
Production
Libeled Lady went into production in mid-July 1936 and wrapped on 1 September. Location shooting took place in Sonora, California.[1]
Jean Harlow and William Powell were an off-screen couple, and Harlow wanted to play Connie Allenbury, so that her character and Powell's would wind up together, but MGM insisted that the film be another William Powell-Myrna Loy vehicle, as they originally intended, so Harlow, who had already signed on to do the film, had to settle for Gladys Benton. Nevertheless, as Gladys, top-billed Harlow got to play a wedding scene with Powell. During filming, Harlow changed her legal name from her birthname of Harlean Carpenter McGrew Bern Rosson to Jean Harlow.[3]Libeled Lady confirmed Harlow's position as one of the biggest female stars in Hollywood,[3] but she would only go on to make two more films before dying of cerebral edema as a result of uremic poisoning at the age of 26.
Reception
Libeled Lady was released on 9 October 1936,[4] and earned $2.7 million at the box office.[3] It received an Academy Award nomination as Best Picture in 1937,[5] but lost to The Great Ziegfeld, which also starred William Powell and Myrna Loy.[6]
Although he played many other roles as well in the 96 films he made in his ten year film career, E.E. Clive often played butlers, as he did in this film.[7]Libeled Lady also has a brief appearance by Hattie McDaniel as a maid, a role she played with great frequency. Billy Benedict (one of the original "The Bowery Boys") had a key supporting role as 'Johnny'.
