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Nothing Sacred (1937)
Director: William Wellman
Writer: Ben Hecht
Cast: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger
Genre: Comedy Romance
I love Carole Lombard in this, she was one of the biggest stars in the 1930s and a skilled comedian too.
What really impressed me about Nothing Sacred is the film's historical importance. It's a very early 3 Strip Technicolor film from 1937. That's two years earlier than the celebrated The Wizard of Oz. To me an old film is like a time machine back to the past, and with Nothing Sacred we get to see the streets of New York City and also see it from the air, and it's all in color! Think about that for a moment, the director William Wellman (Wings 1927) actually used full color aerial footage. I'm sure that was the first time for a feature length film.
This is the first and only time Miss Lombard was filmed in color. They dyed her hair red from her normal light blonde trusses. I thought she looked great, especially in the blue evening gown at the restaurant/club scene. Ahh, those were the days when women road horses onto the stage and people were decked to the nines as they dined and danced in a posh New York City club. Which is much more colorful than my last meal at Denny's
That's the thing about 1930s comedies: America was under the grips of the great depression and audiences went regularly to the movies as a form of escape...And what they escaped into was often the glitzy world of the rich and well-to-do. For a hour or two the poor could image what it would be like not to have to save every crumb of food just to keep from starving.
At the heart of Nothing Sacred is a story of a simple woman from a small rural town who uses her supposed radium poisoning condition to get to live the 'good life' for a short time in NYC. And it's a story about skepticism and mistrust in the newspapers, which is another common theme for 1930s films. But what I really thought was a sophisticated story element was the condemnation of the hoopla that resulted from the media coverage in NYC. We see the people poured their hearts out for the poor dying girl, putting on one helluva show, when really what they wanted was just to feel good about themselves.
Like a lot of screwball comedies of the 30s, Nothing Sacred has a much deeper meaning than the surface shenanigans.
Nothing Sacred (1937)
Director: William Wellman
Writer: Ben Hecht
Cast: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger
Genre: Comedy Romance
'An eccentric woman learns she is not dying of radium poisoning as earlier assumed, but when she meets a reporter looking for a story, she feigns sickness again for her own profit.'
I love Carole Lombard in this, she was one of the biggest stars in the 1930s and a skilled comedian too.
What really impressed me about Nothing Sacred is the film's historical importance. It's a very early 3 Strip Technicolor film from 1937. That's two years earlier than the celebrated The Wizard of Oz. To me an old film is like a time machine back to the past, and with Nothing Sacred we get to see the streets of New York City and also see it from the air, and it's all in color! Think about that for a moment, the director William Wellman (Wings 1927) actually used full color aerial footage. I'm sure that was the first time for a feature length film.
This is the first and only time Miss Lombard was filmed in color. They dyed her hair red from her normal light blonde trusses. I thought she looked great, especially in the blue evening gown at the restaurant/club scene. Ahh, those were the days when women road horses onto the stage and people were decked to the nines as they dined and danced in a posh New York City club. Which is much more colorful than my last meal at Denny's
That's the thing about 1930s comedies: America was under the grips of the great depression and audiences went regularly to the movies as a form of escape...And what they escaped into was often the glitzy world of the rich and well-to-do. For a hour or two the poor could image what it would be like not to have to save every crumb of food just to keep from starving.
At the heart of Nothing Sacred is a story of a simple woman from a small rural town who uses her supposed radium poisoning condition to get to live the 'good life' for a short time in NYC. And it's a story about skepticism and mistrust in the newspapers, which is another common theme for 1930s films. But what I really thought was a sophisticated story element was the condemnation of the hoopla that resulted from the media coverage in NYC. We see the people poured their hearts out for the poor dying girl, putting on one helluva show, when really what they wanted was just to feel good about themselves.
Like a lot of screwball comedies of the 30s, Nothing Sacred has a much deeper meaning than the surface shenanigans.