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DVD Libeled Lady
Newspaper comedy doesn't seem like an MGM genre--ink-stained wretches don't go with Adrian gowns and white deco furniture--but Jack Conway, the designated bull in the Metro china shop (Boom Town, Too Hot to Handle) does what he can to bring some dash and flair to a wildly complicated script. Spencer Tracy is the tough city editor who goes to some spectacular extremes when socialite Myrna Loy files a $5 million libel suit against his paper for calling her a notorious home-wrecker; he hires celebrated ladies' man William Powell to seduce Loy and asks his long-suffering fiancée, Jean Harlow, to marry Powell temporarily so she can play the wronged wife when Loy and Powell are discovered together. The couples crisscross, with frenetic and not entirely unpredictable results, but much of the pleasure here lies in seeing these iconic stars being so thoroughly themselves. The dialogue strains for champagne wit, but the movie's most memorable moment is pure, rotgut slapstick--Powell's bout with an unruly fly-fishing rod. --Dave Kehr
Nominated for Best Picture Oscar in 1936, Jack Conway's screwball comedy is a raucous farce buzzing with zany humor, thanks to a flurry of impeccable one-liners delivered by Powell and Loy, reunited from their initial pairing in "The Thin Man." Playing the newspaper's frantic editor and his continually jilted fiancée, Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow round out the stellar foursome. (Harlow, Powell's real-life love, would die tragically only months after filming was completed.)
Brilliant!
If you think some witty modern comedies are funny try this older stuff for a change--you might be converted! Plot is pretty straight up: scandalized rich girl (Myrna Loy) sues newspaper for false story (Spencer Tracy is editor and his endlessly stood-up fiancee is Jean Harlow). Tracy "contracts" former newspaper comrade (now enemy), William Powell, to seduce Loy and create a counter scandal so she'll drop the charges.
Give this to a modern film company and we kind of know what to expect, give it to a talented ensemble of the sort assembled here, add the natural chemistry that was Powell/Loy, and heave in a terrific script full of great lines and you've got a screwball classic of the type and quality unique to its era. The film just flows, the lines flow, even the absurd plot and its triply absurd conclusions just flow. It's a joy from beginning to end.
One real treat is seeing Powell do some first-rate slapstick during a fly-fishing scene. You'd expect him to just get through it OK but he literally throws himself into the physical humor in a way that would do Keaton proud.
The film also has some sweetness and romance, especially a lovely scene or two between Powell and Loy including a touching moment when he wipes a smudge off her face and she replies "thanks" so sincerely and adorably that it's small wonder she was so popular for so many years. Myrna Loy was in a class by herself and proof of God's existence is that she was paired with a guy who was in a class by himself. They were great friends and mutual clowns and kidders in real life (funny moments in some of their films together almost looked improvised!)and it shows on screen in a chemistry that is less physical heat and more spiritual kinship--two soul mates acting together. Powell married Harlow for a while and I suppose it'll always be a mystery why he and Loy never really got genuinely serious. I love this film but I'd have to say every film with Powell and Loy is a treasure. Do yourself a favor and pick up the Thin Man collection just released!
Screwball with Four Great Stars!
This was Jean Harlow's last truly great film and she shares the complicated but hilarious plot with people she adored in real life: Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy and her real-life romantic interest, William Powell. That Jean and William were involved in an on-again off-again romance doesn't affect the superb comedic performance of Jean Harlow. "Libeled Lady" is a gem of a comedy and it is not just a William Powell/Myrna Loy film. Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy put in great performances. One highlight is seeing Jean look quite unglamorous at the beauty salon with her hair being permed and a mud pack on her face! She deserves top billing in this film in a role that suits her comic skills. Her one scene with Myrna Loy is very touching and they balance one another out perfectly. I hope that their other film together, "Wife vs. Secretary" will be released on DVD soon. Jean is portrays a lady-like character with perfection!
"Libeled Lady" is a must-have for any fan of screwball comedies. Had Jean Harlow lived, she would have starred with such stars of this genre like Cary Grant and that pairing would have been marvelous. But "Libeled Lady" gives Jean Harlow (sans the platinum blonde hair she never needed) a golden opportunity to show that comedy was her forte and she is with three great stars and a director who made a complicated story into a delightful screwball comedy. Enjoy "Libeled Lady"!!!
MGM originally promoted Dinner at Eight by touting the "all-star cast," but this is no run-of-the-mill omnibus picture. On the contrary, rather than cramming as many big names as possible into a lumbering vehicle, the movie's impeccably crafted script (by Edna Ferber and Herman J. Mankiewicz) and direction (by George Cukor) gave some immortal screen luminaries a chance to shine. For sheer bravery, John Barrymore's achingly poignant performance as Larry Renault, a washed-up matinee idol who has "outlived everything but his vanity," is unmatched. Barrymore's brother, Lionel, is equally touching as shipping magnate Oliver Jordan. Oliver vainly tries to save his family's century-old firm, at the same time hiding his financial and health troubles from his wife, Millicent, played to... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Marie Dressler - John Barrymore - Wallace Beery Director(s): George Cukor DVD Release Date: Released the 01 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Almost as welcome as a shaker full of martinis, The Complete Thin Man Collection represents an eagerly awaited DVD milestone for fans of the fizzy MGM movie series. The best film in the series came first: The Thin Man (1934), W.S. Van Dyke's marvelous adaptation of a Dashiell Hammet novel. The movie gods were in a generous mood when they paired William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, the upper-class sophisticates whose sleuthing escapades somehow joined the classic form of the whodunit with the giddyup of screwball comedy. Among the series' many attributes, one of its most radical notions was the idea that a married couple might find each other delightful and view life as a goofy adventure together.
It is common wisdom that the Thin Man sequels... More Info about this DVD Director(s): W.S. Van Dyke DVD Release Date: Released the 02 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Among the earliest writers to set his sights on the director's chair, Preston Sturges brought a frank, unsentimental view of the war between the sexes to his mid-'40s features that exemplify his style, as demonstrated in this prescient 1942 gem. Architect Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and his wife, Gerry (Claudette Colbert), further refine the archetypal Sturges couple--the male embodying strength, idealism, and a certain naivete, the female ultimately stronger, smarter, and (as revealed early on in an astonishing speech by Colbert) clearer-eyed and more pragmatic about the subtext of sex. This giddy shaggy-dog story follows the couple's split, and Gerry's subsequent flight to Palm Beach. This head-snapping frolic is paced by double-entendres and lampooning looks at the very rich, with... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Joel McCrea Director(s): Preston Sturges DVD Release Date: Released the 01 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Just as Roberto Benigni found himself on the receiving end of some finger-wagging for making a comedy set during the Holocaust, so the great Ernst Lubitsch caught some heat for this extraordinary 1942 satire set behind enemy lines during World War II. In his best performance on film, Jack Benny stars as Joseph Tura, the lead actor and head of a Polish theater troupe that is suddenly enlisted as a Resistance organization when an American pilot (Robert Stack) requires protection. The twist is that the pilot has been having a series of trysts with Tura's wife (Carole Lombard), the hilarious evidence being the disruptive departure of Stack's character from a theater audience each night as the hammy Tura unknowingly cues the lovers by launching into Hamlet's famous soliloquy. The remarkable... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Carole Lombard - Jack Benny Director(s): Ernst Lubitsch DVD Release Date: Released the 01 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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