Main Cast: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger, Walter Connolly, Sig Rumann
Release Year: 1937
Country: US
Run Time: 75 minutes
Plot
"This is New York, Skyscraper Champion of the World...Where the Slickers and Know-It-Alls peddle gold bricks to each other...And where Truth, crushed to earth, rises again more phony than a glass eye..." With this jaundiced opening title, scripter Ben Hecht introduces his classic comedy Nothing Sacred. Fredric March plays Wally Cook, a hotshot reporter condemned to writing obituaries because of his unwitting complicity in a fraud. Anxious to get back in the good graces of his editor Oliver Stone (Walter Connolly), Cook pounces on the story of New England girl Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard), who is reportedly dying from radiation poisoning. Actually, Hazel isn't dying at all; she's been misdiagnosed by Moscow's eternally drunk doctor (Charles Winninger). But when Cook offers to take her on an all-expenses-paid trip to New York in exchange for her exclusive story, it's too good an offer to pass up. Once in the Big Apple, Hazel is feted as a heroine by the novelty-seeking populac; she enjoys the adulation at first, but soon (and with the help of gallons of alcoholic beverages) suffers the pangs of conscience. She confesses her deception to Cook, who by now has fallen in love with her. Cook and Stone conspire to keep the public from discovering the truth, eventually dreaming up a phony suicide. Travelling incognito to avoid arrest, Wally and Hazel marry and go on a honeymoon, secure in the knowledge that New York City has forgotten all about her and moved on to their next fad. Brimming with witty, acerbic dialogue and hilarious bits of physical business, Nothing Sacred is among the best "screwball" comedies of the 1930s. The musical score by Oscar Levant both mocks and celebrates the George Gershwinesque musical style then in vogue. As an added bonus, the film is lensed in Technicolor (avoid those two-color reissue prints), allowing modern viewers to see what New York City looked liked back in 1937. Nothing Sacred was later adapted into a Broadway musical, Hazel Flagg, which in turn was filmed by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as Living It Up (1954), with Lewis in the Carole Lombard role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Nothing Sacred is among the best screwball comedies of the 1930s, and one of the few to have been filmed in Technicolor. Carole Lombard and Fredric March lead a strong, versatile cast, and William Wellman's crisp direction keeps the story brisk and peppy. Screenwriter Ben Hecht gives the story an unusually sardonic edge, with fine dialogue and interesting secondary plot twists. Overall, the film plays well for current-day audiences, and the New York location gives the film a distinctive visual texture. One amusing bit of irony is the name and profession of Oliver Stone, the character played by Walter Connolly, a newspaper editor willing to alter facts to fit his needs. Nothing Sacred was released in 1937, nine years before the birth of future screenwriter/director Oliver Stone. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
Frank Fay - Master of Ceremonies; Raymond Scott and His Quintet - Orchestra; "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom - Max Levinsky; Alexander Schoenberg - Dr. Kerchinwisser; Alex Novinsky - Dr. Marachuffsky; Aileen Pringle - Mrs. Bullock; Monica Bannister - "Pocahontas"; Billy Barty - Little Boy; Nora Cecil - Schoolteacher; Shirley Chambers - "Lady Godiva"; George Chandler - Photographer; Ann Doran - Telephone girl; Claire Du Brey - Miss Rafferty, Nurse; Bill Dunn - Electrician; Jinx Falkenburg - Katinka; Margaret Hamilton - Drug Store Lady; Hattie McDaniel - Mrs. Walker; Hedda Hopper - Dowager; Olin Howland - Baggage Man; Vera Lewis - Miss Sedgewick; Ben Morgan - Wrestler; Lee Phelps - Electrician; John Qualen - Swedish Fireman; Ray Scott Quintet - Orchestra; Charles Richman - Mayor; Cyril Ring - Pilot; Kathrun Sheldon - Downer's Nurse; Hans Steinke - Wrestler; A.W. Sweatt - Office boy; Ernest Whitman - Policeman; Monty Woolley - Dr. Vunch; Everett Brown - Policeman; Art Lasky - Mug; Troy Brown - Ernest Walker
Credit
Lyle Wheeler - Art Director, Travis Banton - Costume Designer, Walter Plunkett - Costume Designer, William Wellman - Director, James Newcom - Editor, Hal Kern - Editor, Oscar Levant - Composer (Music Score), Louis Forbes - Musical Direction/Supervision, W. Howard Greene - Cinematographer, David O. Selznick - Producer, Edward Boyle - Set Designer, Jack Cosgrove - Special Effects, Ben Hecht - Screenwriter, Ring Lardner, Jr. - Screenwriter, Budd Schulberg - Screenwriter, Dorothea Holt Redmond - Illustrator, James Street - Short Story Author
Behind the craziness lies an extremely cynical view of newspapers, reporters and the stories they go after, which was a Hecht specialty (see his play The Front Page and the subsequent film versions The Front Page and His Girl Friday.
New York newspaper reporter Wally Cook (Fredric March) tries to pass off an ordinary African-American (Troy Brown) as an African nobleman hosting a charity event. The original cut had some gross ridicule added to the simple comeuppance that remains when the man's wife appears to ruin his scheme, but this was removed. Wally Cook is demoted to writing obituaries. He begs his boss Oliver Stone (Walter Connolly) for another chance.
Wally is sent to Warsaw, a fictional town in Vermont, to interview Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard), a woman supposedly dying of radium poisoning. When Cook finally locates Hazel, she is crying because her doctor has told her that she is not dying. Unaware of this, he invites her to New York as the guest of the Morning Star newspaper.
The newspaper uses her story to increase its circulation. She receives a ticker tape parade and the key to the city, and becomes an inspiration to many. In addition, she and Wally fall in love.
When it is finally discovered that Hazel is not really dying, city officials decide that it would be better to avoid embarrassment by having it seem that she committed suicide. Hazel and Wally get married and quietly set sail for the tropics.
Cast
Carole Lombard
Margaret Hamilton as Drugstore Lady
Carole Lombard as Hazel Flagg. This was Lombard's only Technicolor film. She stated that this film was one of her personal favorites.
Maxie Rosenbloom as Max Levinsky. A boxing world champion, Rosenbloom gave Lombard boxing lessons to prepare her for her fight scene with Fredric March.
According to William Wellman Jr., Janet Gaynor had originally been cast as Hazel Flagg to follow up on the success of A Star is Born (1937). However, when William Wellman Sr. met Carole Lombard, he knew that no other actress could do the part justice, and convinced Selznick to cast her.
Production
The first screwball comedy filmed in color, Nothing Sacred also represents the first use in a color film of process effects, montage and rear screen projection. Backgrounds for the rear projection were filmed on the streets of New York. Paramount Pictures and other studios refined this technique in their subsequent color features.
Ben Hecht is credited with writing the screenplay in two weeks on a train. He adapted the story "Letter to the Editor" by James H. Street which had been first been published in Hearst's International-Cosmopolitan. Hecht wrote a role for his friend John Barrymore in the film, but David Selznick refused to use him as Barrymore had become by then an incurable alcoholic. This caused a rift between Hecht and Selznick, and Hecht walked off the picture. Budd Schulberg and Dorothy Parker were called in to write the final scenes and several others also made contributions to the screenplay, including: David O. Selznick, William Wellman, Sidney Howard, Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman and Robert Carson.
According to Turner Classic Movies, Lombard indulged in hijinks during production. She had several strongmen bind director William Wellman in a straitjacket in order to have his undivided attention. During a break, she and March took the rented fire engine and went careening around the Selznick production lot.
Remakes
Ben Hecht's screenplay was also the basis of a Broadway musical called Hazel Flagg (1953), as well as Living It Up (1954), a movie starring Dean Martin in the Charles Winninger role, Jerry Lewis in the Carole Lombard role, and Janet Leigh in the Fredric March role.
