Nothing Sacred (1937) User Reviews

The original and the best

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 7 September 2008]

"Nothing Sacred" has been remade in whole or part many times but no version comes close to the original 1937 screwball comedy starring Frederic March and Carole Lombard. Directed by William Wellman with a script by Ben Hecht, Nothing Sacred is more topical today than it was then. There's been a good deal written on this board about the political incorrectness of it: racism, drunkenness, physical abuse, stereotyping. It's true, there's something to offend everyone. Instead of judging everything by today's enlightened standards, I prefer to notice that yes, things were different in the past and then move on to the wonderful, witty script, the very modern topic, the great performances, the early, muted color, Lombard's outfits, the old airplane and the scenes of New York as it was in all its glory in the 1930s.

March is Wally Cook, a reporter in hot water for writing about the Sultan of Brunai who in reality is a regular Joe working in New York with a wife who identifies him while he's making pronouncements. Wally goes to Vermont to hunt down a story about a woman dying of radium poisoning and finds her in the person of Hazel Flagg (Lombard). Hazel has just gotten some very bad news from her doctor (Charles Winninger) - she's not dying. The diagnosis was a mistake. She had hopes of taking a trip out of Vermont that was offered to her and asks the doctor to keep the new diagnosis of health quiet. Soon after, she meets Wally, who wants to bring her to New York for a last fling at the expense of the paper, which will follow her until her last poisoned breath. Hazel agrees and takes the doctor with her. At first, she has a blast with only the occasional twinge of guilt. Then a German specialist is brought in and blows Hazel's scam all to hell.

One of the comments had it right - this story predates reality shows by something like 63 years. Hazel, like so many today, is an ersatz celebrity, famous for being famous. What will never change is milking a subject for profit until it's dry. Nothing Sacred has some hilarious scenes and great lines, including the big fight scene in the hotel when Wally tries to make Hazel seem ill by forcing her to fight with him in order to sweat and raise her pulse rate. The nightclub scene is a riot.

Lombard is beautiful and wears some stunning outfits and gowns, a gift to Hazel from the newspaper. She was a very adept actress with a wonderful sense of comedy. How sad that she is in a film about dying young and would do so five years later at the age of 34. She and March do a great job together - he's normally not known for his comedy but does well here. He approach to Wally is serious and he plays Wally's intensity and affection for Hazel for all it's worth. Connelly as his editor is fabulous, as is Winninger as the doctor who drinks his way through New York.

Nothing Sacred has been a musical, Hazel Flagg, and remade as Living it Up (with Jerry Lewis as Homer Flagg). Most recently, the general plot was reworked as Last Holiday. See the original in the screwball comedy genre which is, alas, no more.

Still Great

[Boyo-2 · 8/10 · 17 June 2002]

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.

Luminous Lombard Glides Over Screwball Classic on Tabloid Journalism

[EUyeshima · 8/10 · 12 December 2005]

The incandescent Carole Lombard was simply the most beautiful comedienne during Hollywood's golden era of the 1930's. In fact, the one conceit of the film is how her stunning glamour, especially in the newspaper photos, seems at odds with the innocent small-town girl she portrays in this 1937 screwball comedy classic directed in lickety-split fashion by the two-fisted William "Wild Bill" Wellman. Lombard never let her beauty get in the way of being funny, and her effervescent manner makes her seem dotty enough to make the crazy situations she gets into believable. Moreover, the film's constant tweaking at the public obsession over a young woman's impending death predates the concept of reality programming by nearly 70 years.

For a movie that clocks in at just 75 minutes, the far-fetched story is fairly dense but clips by without a wasted moment. In brief, Wally Cook is a New York tabloid reporter relegated to the obituaries after his most recent story is exposed as fake. Seeking to rehabilitate his career, he uncovers a story on Hazel Flagg, a woman in rural Vermont dying of radium poisoning. When he arrives in her town, she suddenly learns that her diagnosis was a mistake and that she is not dying at all. However, feeling constrained by her small town existence, Hazel pretends to be terminally ill in order to accept Wally's offer to take her to New York City. In true 1930's fashion, New York pours its heart out to her making her an instant media celebrity. Hazel starts to feel guilty over the misdirected attention, and of course, Wally and Hazel find themselves falling in love amid all the deception and inevitable chaos.

Just coming off his classic dramatic turn in the most cohesive version of "A Star Is Born", stalwart leading actor Fredric March gamely plays the initially cynical Wally with the right everyman demeanor, though I kept thinking how much more at home William Powell or Cary Grant would have been in the role. The lovable Lombard makes Hazel a sublime comic creation even though the character is basically a selfish charlatan. They have a classic sparring scene near the end where each lands a punch on the jaw of the other. Familiar character actors complete the cast with Walter Connolly in constipated frustration as Wally's constantly boiling editor-in-chief (aptly named Oliver Stone), Charles Winninger properly pixilated as Hazel's fraud of a doctor, and familiar faces like Sig Ruman, Margaret Hamilton, Hattie McDaniel and Hedda Hopper in little more than walk-on parts.

Wellman displays an idiosyncratic way with the camera, for instance, focusing on Lombard's ankles as she flirts with March in an open crate or having a tree branch cover their faces during a key dialogue scene. Unsurprisingly, the director of "Wings" and "Lafayette Escadrille" inserted a scene aboard a plane to show off the Manhattan skyline. One of the first movies filmed in Technicolor, it still looks pretty good though there is subtle graininess and typical for a film of this age, a constant popping noise exists in the background. Not as good as "My Man Godfrey" nor as funny as "Bringing Up Baby", "Nothing Sacred" is still great entertainment and a rare opportunity to see the luminous Lombard at full star wattage.

Very Sharp-Edged, Sweeping Satirical Comedy

[Snow Leopard · 4 April 2005]

The writers, crew, and cast of "Nothing Sacred" really do treat everything in accordance with the movie's title. No aspect of human society is immune from the sweeping satire. The comedy is fast-paced and often very sharp-edged, and almost any viewer will find it hitting close to home at one time or another, so it is best not to take it too personally. Yet this is not a mean-spirited feature, in that it treats everyone the same way, and it shows sympathy even for the very characters whose faults it so ruthlessly exposes.

Frederic March, as a hardened newsman, and Carole Lombard, as an appealing woman who is nevertheless living a lie, make a good combination. They are both likable enough to make you care about them even when they are at their most opportunistic. The supporting cast, likewise, features several good performances, with the likes of Walter Connolly and Sig Rumann getting some fine moments of their own. William Wellman shows a good feel for the material, getting good mileage out of the story without pushing it too far.

This kind of feature is somewhat unusual even among movies of its genre. Most satires choose their targets, ridicule them, and put the opposing forces in a positive light. But "Nothing Sacred" takes no sides between the small town and the big city, between the powerful and the powerless, or between one character and another. It points out the human flaws to be found in almost all of us.

This is the kind of movie that can only be enjoyed if you don't take it personally or too seriously, because in that case the message will be misunderstood. Rather than targeting any one kind of person, it intends to make some more general points about human nature that, while sometimes rather pointed, are encased in enough humor to make them palatable.

If its not one hoax, its another.

[michaelRokeefe · 7/10 · 1 June 2003]

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.

Lombard Central

[Lejink · 7/10 · 12 June 2017]

I really enjoyed this great 30's screwball comedy which like so many of them hangs on a bizarre plot idea pitting smart man (so he thinks) against smarter woman - guess who always wins in the end. Here we get to see the actress with perhaps the best comedic timing of the whole era, Carole Lombard, in absolutely fizzing form throughout. For these battle of the sexes romps, there has to be a tough-minded, if dim-witted male for the female to run up against and in this occasion the patsy role falls to Fredric March, not an actor I'd much associated with comedic parts before but he's great here.

Previously the sap for the hilarious first scene hoax, March's previously high-ranking features writer finds himself demoted to almost literally the broom cupboard under the stairs with another great hyper-kinetic scene as everybody on the paper almost literally walks all over him while he's trying to write his copy.

To redeem himself in his testy editor's eye, he espies a potential feel-good story of a small-town girl's supposedly terminal illness and whisks her off to New York for a heart-tugging human interest tale of the innocent abroad seeing the sights and sounds of New York before she expires. The only problem is, her country bumpkin doctor has got his diagnosis wrong and there's nothing at all wrong with her. So what do you want the girl to do? Well, dragging along her usually inebriated doc for the ride, she more than happily takes up March on his offer, becoming a household celebrity in the Big Apple long before the accursed words "reality star" ever entered the language.

Of course it all ends in tears of sadness, rage and joy, pretty much in that order, with lots of laughs along the way. The most famous scene I guess, is when Lombard's Hazel Flagg character is presented to the great and good in New York society at a posh dinner and when asked for a few words, can only burp a reply before falling down dead drunk. I laughed at that but I also laughed at a great little sight gag when big bad city news-man March gets bitten on the leg by a rabid infant when he arrives in the backwater looking for his quarry. I also loved writer Ben Hecht's topical jokes about the presidents of the day - wouldn't he have a field day right now!

There are a couple of jarring moments however which at least remind us how society has progressed in the years ahead, like when the drunken doctor casually sings the racially offensive "D" word or when March actually socks Lombard on the jaw, but at least she gives it straight back to him.

On the whole, this is a great, breakneck comedy, undoubtedly one of the best of its kind and as a bonus it's in an early colour print process with some great shots of 30's New York in its pomp.

A great satire

[beynac · 10/10 · 26 July 2004]

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.

Some really funny stuff... even today

[LDB_Movies · 7/10 · 9 August 1999]

Just saw this "classic" on AMC and even though it's very hard to make me laugh, there are 2 EXTREMELY funny lines (won't spoil them for you) regarding things that are written in letters penned by the Carole Lombard character. I laughed out loud. After the movie was over I was still "playing" these lines in my head and laughing.

That kind of humor is rare for a movie that's 60 years old-- I haven't seen/heard these jokes duplicated in a movie since.

Definitely worth seeing. 7 out of 10.

Hungering For Our Celebrities

[bkoganbing · 9/10 · 17 May 2007]

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.

"For good clean fun, there's nothing like a wake"

[mattfloyd-41009 · 6/10 · 16 April 2019]

Only David O. Selznick could get away with making a thoroughly mean-spirited raspberry to media manipulation during the Production Code's early vigorous enforcement. This is hopefully the only screwball comedy where our leading man knocks out our leading woman on the jaw in order to silence her for medical professionals. Don't worry too much though, since our leading lady is Carole Lombard, she makes sure that her co-star, Frederic March, gets his jaw socked as well.

For anyone who thinks that Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder were the first ones to tackle acidic comedies, I gleefully point them to this film where there's not one single likable person to be found in the admittedly impressive cast. At some point, you'd wish that all of them would get radium poisoning and die violently for your amusement. Even Carole Lombard has her moments where she's an awful, terrible person. She only goes along with her faux-poisoning in order to see New York, as well as to get out of her spiteful small town.

Its main theme on the timeless tradition of rotten media exploiting tragedies for national relevance is so cynical in execution that it makes Ace in the Hole briefly look like Andy Hardy. Sadly, it's still relevant as our media is so captivated with sensationalism that we have breaking tragedies occur without any real change resulting from them.

Naturally, I'm expected to hate this one instead of sympathizing with it - I'm definitely not a fan of being-cynical-for-the-sake-of-being-cynical. This film is admittedly guilty of not deciding what tone it needs to focus on, which makes it even more malicious in its rebelliousness. It's also guilty of not having hindsight in joke material, as it features a lot of anti-humor in the disguise of punchlines.

However, the frankly smug film is smarter than its purposefully immature characters. Deep down, it knows that everyone is a rotten, terrible monster who really don't deserve their privilege. This is what makes it so uncomfortably fresh - it refuses to gloss over its worldview and instead shows it in all its ugly shades. Unlike most of the glitzy fluff that Hollywood cranked out at the time, this film is still razor sharp all these decades later.

Moreover, Carole Lombard and Frederic March are perfectly cast as the only remotely likable characters; you really do get terrific chemistry between them to the point you sort of forgive them for hitting each other. Plus, it's the rare classic Hollywood film where you get to see someone actually giving the screen an unusual gesture. Again, Selznick was really persuasive with the censors.

Nothing sacred, Nothing entertaining.

[t-murphy-94619 · 2/10 · 13 October 2015]

Nothing Sacred isn't just boring, its aggravating to watch. None of the characters are endearing. I don't mean likable because there can be unlikable yet endearing characters. Characters the movie makes you hate but still want to root for them. Nothing Sacred does not do that. Fredric March is supposedly the best reporter in the city who makes one career ruining mistake. Then in an attempt to redeem himself he then immediately makes the exact same mistake. He rushes into another feel good story without doing any research. Hazel Flagg is meant to be seen as a pitiable girl in over her head but acts like a spoiled child. Dr. Enoch Downer can't make up his mind between being a reluctant participant or complete imbecile. And the movie's message is that newspapers always lie to get a story and readers are foolish and selfish to latch onto sob stories. The worst part of it all is that this screwball comedy just isn't funny. Site gags and clever wit are very rarely seen and even more rarely successful. The final joke of the movie is the doctor waking up and thinking the hotel he is in has sunk underwater because he hasn't realized he's on a boat. That joke belongs in a Looney tunes cartoon. Although hats off to Nothing Sacred for being the first color comedy.

Great Fun and Smart Writing!!

[alicecbr · 9/10 · 28 November 2000]

A Southern hick, I love it when Vermonters are made fun of. Of course, they are only one of the many groups this movie pokes fun at. If you don't want to see physical abuse made funny, don't see this hilarious satire on everything politically correct. Of course, what really makes this hilarious is that in 1937, they didn't KNOW it was politically incorrect to show man hitting women, to show 'darkies', irascible and rude New Englanders, etc. Then there's the propeller-driven airplanes, the first of the airliners flying right past the head of the Statue of Liberty. And guess what? Jack Welch's fortress, Rockefeller Center, looked then just like it looks now.

Some things don't change: newspaper chicanery, among others. The hoaxes they bring about, and the hoaxes they continue to abet all in the name of news, is not news anymore.....it's SOP. Right now, the current hoax is the nomenclature used to describe the appointing of the Cabinet, as though the election were a fait accomplis: "Andrew Card, the president's new appointee......" and other such insiduously assumptive language has been used before, as this movie wonderfully points out. In this case, it's a woman at death's door dying of radium poisoning.....who ain't!!! I'm giving nothing away, it's perfectly obvious from the beginning.

I suppose I should rail against the prejudice shown against all newspaper folks by the good people of Vermont, as they shut this guy out....with one toddler biting him on the leg as he walks down the street....but it just felt too good. (After all, some really do take their jobs as members of the 4th Estate and protectors of the common good seriously.)

The color is pretty good for 1937, and you'll see the Wicked Witch of the East portraying her less wicked, but still spiteful self.

What will give you chills is the pervading knowledge as you hear Carole Lombard's dialogue about death and dying...that she wasn't to ever grow old gracefully, but died in a plane crash not long after this film was made. She was a beautiful woman, and did quiet a good job of acting in this many-faceted satire of life and our attraction to dying, or the pretense of it.

Well worth your time on many levels ...just to see film-making of the 30's and how good it could be, for one.

Nothing Scared

[t-covino · 7/10 · 11 March 2013]

A very witty comedy based in new york and the life of a reporter who seems to be coming up short. He can only get the job of writing obituaries in the paper and he is contanstantly trying to get back on his editors good side.It is a very good screwball comedy with romance as well as very good comedy through witty lines and funny actions by the characters.There's is a bit of a twist in the story when the main character realizes what is really going on but has to make a choice due to the fact he has fallen for the girl who is supposed to be his story.The musical part by Oscar Levant both mocks and celebrates the musical style that was being used during that time period.It is also possible to view in color because it was shot in technicolor so you can see what new york looked like back in the 30's which is pretty interesting.

Dx: Tries Too Hard.

[rmax304823 · 3/10 · 14 August 2009]

Frederick March is a reporter on a New York paper, desperate for a feature story. He digs up a notice of a young woman in Vermont, Carole Lombard, who has been diagnosed as terminally ill with radium poisoning. Not knowing the diagnosis was a mistake made by a bibulous rural doctor, March rushes to Vermont and offers the "dying" woman a trip to New York, all expenses paid, for a last fling. Lombard has discovered the mistaken diagnosis but, in thrall to the prospect of a vacation in the Big Apple, agrees to go along.

She's exploited by the newspaper and becomes a celebrity. She gets the keys to the city for her bravery. People weep at her name. The governor endorses a "Hazel Flagg Day." Everything Lombard does -- such as getting drunk and passing out at a big affair in her honor -- is interpreted as a sign of her mysterious but debilitating illness.

A quartet of European doctors finally uncover her real state, which has more to do with radiance than radium. She and March have fallen in love. Lombard leaves a farewell note to the city, claiming she is going off to die alone ("like an elephant") and the couple escape on a ship.

I'd heard this was an outstanding screwball comedy of the sort common in the mid and late 30s, so the first time I saw it, years ago, I thought I had caught the wrong movie because it wasn't very funny. I've just seen it again and it's still not funny.

It's rushed, yes, and sometimes a little hysterical, and everyone involved tries for boffo laughs, but it doesn't clear the bar set by such other examples of the genre as "Bringing up Baby" or "It Happened One Night" or "The Palm Beach Story." I hate to say it, because so much effort is on display and because Carole Lombard scintillates in the role of the deceptive but fundamentally decent Hazel Flagg. But Frederick March, a fine actor in serious parts, is miscast. Somebody like Clark Gable or Cary Grant is called for -- an earnest extrovert. The funniest scene, I gather, is when March knocks Lombard unconscious in the bedroom. Maybe I'm becoming patriarchal but it doesn't make me laugh to see a woman punched in the jaw. Well, maybe my ex wife. As it is, the funniest scenes involve ancillary characters like German doctors and Scandinavian firemen, who are on screen collectively for about ten minutes.

The plot itself has a lot of built-in tension because, after all, both Lombard and the audience know she isn't sick. So how and when will the charade be brought to a finish? Actually, it leaves a thoughtful person a little uncomfortable because what we have here is an example of an aborted rite of passage. A rite of passage marks the transition of the subject from one status to another. The ceremonies, large and small, surrounding a death are part of a rite of passage, a shift from the status of "living" to that of "dead." People go to a lot of trouble to prepare for an impending death. And when the doomed person refuses to die -- maybe perks up and remits -- the ritual is aborted. The same thing happens when one of the parties cancels a wedding at the last minute, after the invitations have been sent out and the presents have arrived. It leaves a hole in the scenario. It's like watching a Charlie Chan movie with the last ten minutes missing. The audience is, of course, happy that Hazel Flagg is alive and well in Tahiti, and yet underneath it all they feel a little CHEATED.

Anyway, I understand that many viewers enjoyed this immensely and don't want to discourage anyone from watching it, but I thought it was interminable instead of terminal. Not a laugh in a cartload.

Funny screwball comedy

[s-lajeunesse · 7/10 · 13 March 2015]

Nothing Sacred is another screwball comedy that fits the bill with the rest of the films during that time. Carole Lombard, after playing Irene Bullock in the ultra successful My Man Godfrey film a year earlier, once again is brilliant as she plays Hazel Flaggs. The film is able to present comedy through excellent execution of the dialogue and creative script writing from the filmmakers. the movie is very well directed by William Wellman and is truly successful in getting humor out of the eccentric characters and the overall feel in the film. The acting in the movie is superb with each joke or line being delivered perfectly in order to make the film funny and light-hearted. Nothing Sacred combined terrific script writing with tremendous acting to become a classic movie from a time when movies were forced to follow the strict guidelines of the 1934 censorship code.

Slickly Done Madcap

[dougdoepke · 1 September 2019]

Guess I won't be going to Warsaw, Vermont, anytime soon. They speak only two abrupt words there and everyone except Lombard looks like The Wicked Witch of The East. No wonder Lombard wants to get the heck out even if she has to pretend to be dying to do it.

The Selznick production's a first-rate effort all the way around, from colorful sets to snappy direction to vibrant acting. The premise is a tricky one- deceiving popular emotions by faking death, but the Selznick crew brings it off in astute madcap fashion. It's the kind of material that could go badly wrong without sure hands to guide it.

Lombard calibrates nicely in the central role, while the boisterous Connoly almost steals the show with a flashy performance. In fact, his newspaper editor is assertive enough to rescue General Custer. On the other hand, reporter March has to low-key it as Lombard's sensible advisor. And did I imagine it or does Lombard, wittingly or not, flash a bandaged middle-finger salute during the dance numbers. Also, NS is apparently (IMDB) the first comedy to be filmed in color, the process then being only a year or so old, but you'd never know it from the print I saw.

Anyway, seldom does Hollywood combine disparate elements as slickly as here, even when some story elements are touchy. All in all, I would think the Wellman helmed flick amounts to one of the radiant Lombard's best.

an enjoyable social satire

[mjneu59 · 7/10 · 21 December 2010]

Carole Lombard is the scatterbrained redhead from rural Vermont who fakes a terminal disease in order to enjoy an all-expenses-paid final fling in New York City, which she says she "couldn't appreciate" during her only other visit (at age three). Discovered by hard-luck reporter Frederick March and sponsored by his headline-hungry newspaper, she becomes an instant human-interest sensation: the doomed but noble innocent on whom the public can lavish all its bogus sympathies. The film may be less madcap than other screwball comedies of the time, but writer Ben Hecht's clearheaded satire of big city (and small town) hypocrisies still provides plenty of laughs, and the restored Technicolor print (I saw this on the big screen in the mid-1980s) is a real treat.

Still fresh after eighty years

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 25 March 2017]

Reporter Wallace Cook has been demoted to writing obituaries after being taken in by a charlatan who went on to humiliate his boss when he was exposed. Hoping to return to 'proper' reporting he manages to persuade his boss to let him write a piece about a Vermont girl, Hazel Flagg, who is dying of radium poisoning. He heads to Vermont to find her but just before they meet she learns that the doctor has made a mistake… one would expect her to be happy but the company she worked for had offered her a trip to see the sights of New York before she died and she was desperate to get out of her small town.

When Wallace tells her that his paper wants to take her to New York and give her the best visit ever she doesn't hesitate to accept; surely it won't matter if she is 'dying' for a bit longer. Wallace takes her, along with her doctor, to New York and soon she is having a great time and everybody wants to be seen with this 'brave dying girl'. Wallace points out that half the people they see are phoneys which of course makes her feel guilty but she can't think of a way out of her lie. Of course she will eventually be found out but by then Wallace has fallen for her and others feel it would be embarrassing for themselves if the truth comes out.

Given that this film is eighty years old it remains surprisingly fresh; the idea of having somebody perpetuating a lie to achieve fame and have a good time it timeless but seems especially believable in this celebrity obsessed time. The story is told in a way that is just about plausible and provides plenty of laughs. Fredric March did a good job as Wallace but it is Carole Lombard who dominates the film as Hazel; she makes her the most likable character despite the fact that we know she is a fraud… at least she acknowledges this to herself unlike many other characters. The supporting cast is pretty solid as well. While this is obviously a comedy there is some drama too as the question of what will ultimately happen to Hazel is raised… what does happen, not surprisingly, suits the light tone of the film. Overall I'd recommend this to anybody who enjoys older films or who wants a gentle comedy with no offensive material.

Cute film w/ the lovely Carole Lombard

[smatysia · 7/10 · 9 October 2000]

A cute show. Nothing made me roll on the floor, but still cute. Carole Lombard was soooo beautiful. And she was secure enough in it to take a comedic role where she would make faces, and have her hair wet, and other things that many beautiful actresses would not. I recommend.

Fun With Carole and Fred!

[jem132 · 9/10 · 24 March 2006]

This 1937 screwball comedy is perhaps the only Technicolour film of it's genre, and what a fun, exuberant ride it is! Reliable 30's leading man Fredric March stars as Walter Cook, a reporter at the New York newspaper 'The Morning Star' who will do anything for a good story. After a botched attempt to pass off a African-American commoner as the Sultan Of Brunei, Wally, desperate to redeem himself, travels to Vermont to cover the last remaining weeks of Hazel Flagg's (the wonderful Carole Lombard) radium-poisoning-interrupted life. The trouble is, Hazel's not really sick at all- she was initially misdiagnosed by her bumbling Vermont doctor. Still, Hazel jumps at Cook's offer for her to take a last-gasp trip to the Big City. She's a big hit with the City as the new 'bleeding heart' story. As the pair inevitably fall in love, Hazel's conscience starts to get the better of her and things start to unravel very fast.

Lombard and March! What can I say...they are terrific together! Carole's bright and gorgeous, this is one of her best performances. She's slightly too glamorous to be a small-town Vermont gal, but she's very believable in the role otherwise. As one of the best comic actresses ever to grace the screen, she lights up and gives wit to every scene. March is likable, attractive and does comedy very well. The pair share numerous classic moments together, particularly in the mock 'fight' scene. They, IMO, rank up there with Hepburn-Grant and Gable-Colbert as one of the great screwball pairings.

The colourful supporting players are a lark, too. Watch for the lady better known as The Wicked Witch Of The West, Margaret Hamilton, early in the film as one of the many seemingly 'backward' residents of Vermont. Yep, anyone? Walter Connolly is priceless as the stressed newspaper boss Oliver Stone. Applause must go to Billy Barty, as the young Vermont boy who bites March on the calf, for providing possibly the most spontaneous and funny moment in the entire film.

Aside from the fun and games, this is a wonderful satire on both the values of modern society and the corruption of truth by the media. From the opening shots of busy New York night-life (watch for the very prominent Coca-Cola sign) and Big-city skyscrapers obviously inspired by King Vidor's silent 'The Crowd', we know that we are getting a screwball comedy with a message. Aside from certain racist and sexist elements that the modern viewer may find slightly off putting, this film holds up very well.

The only problem with this film is the rather slow opening sequence. The laughs only really flow fast and freely when we arrive at Vermont and Lombard makes her entrance, 15 minutes into the film. The colour is slightly dodgy (or is it just my copy?), which is understandable as it is one of the early colour films.

Another one of those 30's comedies that didn't have to rely on toilet humour or sex jokes in order to be entertaining.

My rating: 8/10

Uneven, but has its moments

[gbill-74877 · 7/10 · 16 May 2018]

It's nice to see Frederic March and Carole Lombard in color, especially since this was the only color film she ever made. The premise is pretty silly, that so much would be made out of this 'dying' woman in the press and all over New York that shows would be stopped in her presence, she would be given the key to the city, etc., but it's a screwball comedy, so you just have to roll with it. The film had its moments, such as the treatment March faces in Vermont, with its taciturn adults, and a child who scampers out from behind a fence to bite him on the leg. However, it's pretty uneven in terms of humor, with a lot of run of the mill content, and several groaners. You'll also have to forgive some racial stereotypes, and March working Lombard up into a fever by boxing with her, and then knocking her out in one of the film's big scenes. Those bits are in keeping with the time period and not too ugly though, and it was nice to see Lombard give as good as she got. The production value for the film was high, as despite the weakness of the early technicolor process, it had a nice score, and many fantastic shots around New York.

My favorite moment in the film is when March proposes to Lombard, despite thinking she has only a few weeks to live. In a film with a lot of screwball moments and one-liners, it had this little gem: "Oh Wally, I... I mustn't. Don't ask me. Please, just kiss me once more and let it go at that without ruining your life." "So what the devil is there better to life than we've got? A handful of perfect hours. That's all the luckiest ever get out of it. Just a handful of hours to save and remember. And then... I'll be there at the end, sailor. I'll be there waving you goodbye. It'll be the same as if you and I had lived forever. And you'll... you'll grow old in my heart."

What a disappointment

[mountainkath · 5/10 · 15 January 2009]

As a huge classic movie fan and a huge Carole Lombard fan, it pains me to say this, but I really didn't like this movie.

I wanted to like it. Heck, I expected to like it, but I didn't.

Lombard and March gave good performances, but I think the main problem was that I found the movie boring. It didn't hold my attention. The movie is quite short, but it seemed to just plod along.

The plot of the movie is interesting (small town girl fakes illness to see the big city and then falls in love with the man she's deceiving), but the execution could have been so much better.

That said, I'm glad I saw the movie. It's Lombard's only film in color and that alone was worth my time.

A Screwball Comedy Classic

[jacksflicks · 10/10 · 31 December 1998]

The votes for this movie must have been based on political correctness, for based on hilarity, assuming one has a healthy sense of the absurd, this film rates a solid 10.

True, those who are thin-skinned will find the racial and gender and, uh, regional send-offs deplorable. However, since the film is a brilliant satire on the phoniness of those who take themselves too seriously, it is natural that when these people see themselves in it, they will be offended.

"Nothing Sacred" refers not only to the values hypocrisy seeks to destroy, but to the sacred cows the film seeks to topple. Carol Lombard has never been lovelier or more picaresque, and Frederic March plays a great foil for the barely plausible goings on.

One of the irritants in the highly regarded "Bringing up Baby" is the completely implausible haplessness of Cary Grant's character and the determined obtuseness of Kathrine Hepburn's. In "Nothing Sacred" there are no such distractions; it is the superior film.

Other joys of the film are the delightful vignettes, such as a dipsomaniacal country doctor's tirade against journalists (In vino veritas, indeed!) and the transparently phony patriotism at a strip club.

Filmed in glorious early technicolor.

"She's doing very well for her last few weeks!"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 17 September 2018]

Imagine that - fake news in 1937! Who would have thought?

Well, I didn't seem to catch the hysterical humor that a lot of other reviewers on this site seemed to have gotten out of the picture. Nor did I note any detectable romantic chemistry between Miss Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard) and Morning Star reporter Wally Cook (Fredric March). Even when he was proclaiming his undying love for her, it didn't seem like Wally was entirely convinced, as if he were trying to assure himself of the fact as well as Hazel. The wrestlers at Madison Square Garden came across as more realistic. Maybe March wasn't the right guy to cast opposite Miss Lombard; William Powell or Cary Grant might have been better choices, March seemed just a bit too disengaged in the role.

A couple of things that grabbed my attention didn't even have anything to do with the story per se. An opening scene of Times Square revealed that Coca-Cola was placing their logo in movie scenes as far back as the Thirties, whereas today, almost every modern movie you're liable to see will contain some reference to Coke, it's almost a hundred percent guarantee. And then there was that scene from inside the plane that Wally Cook and Hazel Flagg were flying in. They were able to read the sky-written message stating 'Hello Hazel' welcoming her to New York, but it would have been viewed backwards to anyone on the ground below, the presumed audience for it.

Another huh? moment occurred for me when the name of the Morning Star publisher was revealed, it was Oliver Stone! Not that the name was so unusual, but being the same as a controversial and legendary modern day film maker caught me off guard. Not shy about conspiracy theories, the Oliver Stone of today might have been able to do something with the radium poisoning business at the center of this story if he'd been born earlier. I don't know how I come up with these things, I just do.

Don't take my review as a total put-down of the picture. There are some funny moments, the main one being the bedroom punch-out between Wally and Hazel, but it was too little and too late to ensure this film's status as a screwball classic. Oh yeah, and if you were paying attention, it was pretty obvious to me that the Lady Godiva character in the stage show was giving the audience the finger. How did they ever get away with that?

Not as great as I expected.

[Taffyta · 4/10 · 16 February 2013]

Before watching this movie, I looked up the trailer on YouTube and it seemed like it was going to be pretty funny. I also wanted to see it because it was in Technicolor, the first one for my film class so far. It was amusing at times, but I was kind of disappointed. After watching "My Man Godfrey", this paled in comparison. The main guy seemed to be a pretty shallow character. I felt bad for him at first, but then he just kind of seemed like a gullible idiot. The dialog wasn't as funny, the characters weren't lovable. I don't remember any of their names. The storyline was actually kind of boring to me, I found myself checking my phone during it. The only thing that excited me was seeing Margaret Hamilton (of "Wizard of Oz" fame).