Double Feature: Carole Lombard

Nothing Sacred (1937)
Also starring: Fredric March, Walter Connolly, Charles Winninger

This black comedy is packed full of some of the most cringe-worthy stereotypes to hit the big screen. Perhaps that is why it hasn't taken its rightful place as one of the most bitterly clever comedies of the thirties. A newspaperman (March), fresh off a scandal, is looking for a sensational story to save his reputation. He thinks he has found it when he learns of Hazel Flagg (Lombard), a small town woman dying of radium poisoning.

He goes to her town, and convinces her to fly back to New York with him to live her last days in style. Unfortunately, he is headed towards another scandal, because Hazel's drunken doctor has made an incorrect diagnosis. She keeps up the charade to get a free trip to New York. There should be no characters to love in this biting little comedy, but Hazel's desperate desire for adventure, and the guilt she suffers when she can't continue the ruse win her a measure of sympathy. Lombard finds a good woman hiding in this deceptive character.

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