The 1930’s brought sound movies to the forefront. Along with it came the fast talking world of screwball comedies, the best of the Marx Brothers and much more. It was hard to limit this list to just ten. But that is the name of the game. The great film critic Andrew Sarris once described “screwball comedy as a sex comedy without the sex.”
This is the Part 3 in a monthly series.
William Powell and Myrna Loy made fourteen films together marking them as one of the most recognized and great screen team pairings. They first appeared together in 1934’s “Manhattan Melodrama” which was soon followed by “The Thin Man,” the first of six films they would make as Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles. They would go on to make eight more films with Powell always elegant and charming while Loy emoted style, wit and a flirtatious naughtiness. In 1936, they were teamed with two other of MGM’s grand stars, Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy, and made one of the most delightful and funny screwball comedies to grace the screen, “Libeled Lady.”
Nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, “Libeled Lady” moves at a quick pace barely giving the viewer time to catch one’s breath. Directed by MGM house director, Jack Conway, Loy is Connie Allenbury, an heiress who is suing a local newspaper for five million dollars for printing false accusations about her stealing another woman’s husband. The paper’s editor is the scheming, crusty Haggerty (Spencer Tracy) who plans to obstruct the lawsuit by creating a scheme that will make Connie appear to be a real husband stealer. His plan is to enlist the services of Bill Chandler (William Powell), a former reporter for the paper, along with his own frustrated fiancé of two years, a reluctant Gladys (Jean Harlow). Haggerty convinces both Bill and Gladys to get married to each other, but only for appearances sake, and not certainly not to be consummated! Bill will then “seduce” Connie, who is unaware that he is a married man, into a romantic relationship only to have Gladys come barging in causing a public scandal with Tracy’s paper breaking the news, forcing Connie to drop the suit.
Filled with one hilarious scene after another, arguably the most hysterical is the wedding scene of Bill and Gladys. At the end of the ceremony, the justice of the peace tells the bride and groom they can now kiss. The two uncomfortably peck each other reluctantly on the lips. When Haggerty congratulates the new bride with a kiss, it is a long and passionate, shocking the justice of the peace. The new husband, Bill looking on informs the flustered justice of the peace not to worry, “they are old friends… very old friends!”
A fishing scene is also a highlight with Bill pretending to be an expert on trout fishing to impress Connie’s father, a delightful Walter Connelly. He unnervingly finds himself in the stream soak and wet, yet somehow managing to bag the largest catch of the day (This whole sequence reminded me of Howard Hawk’s 1964 comedy, “Man’s Favorite Sport” where Rock Hudson passes himself off as an expert on fishing but has actually never fished). As the film progresses, the plot becomes thicker and wilder, with Gladys beginning to believe she is really falling in love with Bill, while Bill actually falls in love with his supposed mark, Connie, and the two impetuously getting married. A jealous Gladys will accuse them of arson when she really means bigamy.
Marriage of convenience has been a common plot device in many comedies over the years, “Hired Wife,” “Come Live With Me,” “The Lady is Willing,” “Next Time I Marry,” and “The Doctor Takes a Wife” are a few films that have used the same theme. I actually watched the last of these film’s mentioned recently, a pleasant entertaining movie with Loretta Young and Ray Milland, though not in the same league as “Libeled Lady.” If “Libeled Lady” has a flaw it comes in the final minutes when all that is going on in the convoluted plot needs to be sorted out to ensure a happy ending, particularly the problem of Powell’s character who married Harlow during the course of the movie, but is in love with, and marries Loy, making Powell a bigamist. Well, we can’t have that, after all, this is 1936 and the production code is in effect, so as the film comes to its conclusion, Bill announces he looked into Gladys’ past and found that her Yucatan divorce from her first husband was illegal, subsequently, she was not free to have married him, making it legal for Bill to have married Connie. Only the put upon Gladys has her day, coming back with an unexpected topper, by announcing to everyone she followed the fiasco Yucantan divorce with a legal Reno divorce, freeing her to have married Bill! Unfortunately, both of these plot points come out of nowhere, like a mystery writer who injects a totally unexpected twist, an unseen and contrived idea into the storyline in the last chapter, with no previous hint earlier in the story, to surprise the reader. The entire scene is too manufactured and feels forced in order to resolve Bill’s double marriage dilemma.
That said, this is a not to be missed fun filled farce with a spectacular MGM cast. Myrna Loy who can express witty and naughty looks by just the raise of an eyebrow is matched flawlessly against her ideal screen partner, William Powell. Jean Harlow is a comedic gem with the right touches of cunning and naiveté, and Spencer Tracy is perfect as the calculating newspaper editor who puts the paper above all else.
****
“The Ex-Mrs. Bradford” falls into a small, exclusive and unofficial sub-genre called comedy-mystery films. The RKO production is clearly a carbon copy of the much more popular and superior Thin Man series. It is a small group of films, though generally entertaining even if most are not outright classics. The idea behind these films is to have a lot of snappy banter between the husband and wife and a murder or two for them to solve, nothing gory or to intricate to get in the way of the overall lightness of the affair.
Along with the five Nick and Nora films, there is the FAST series, “Fast and Furious”, “Fast Company” and “Fast and Loose.” Surprisingly, the husband and wife detective team in this series was never played twice by the same pair of actors. We also have “Mr. and Mrs. North” with Gracie Allen, “A Night to Remember” with Brian Adhere and Loretta Young and more recently, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in his 1994 homage to Hammett’s sleuths, in “Manhattan Murder Mystery.”
Of course, if the movies do it, you can bet television would reproduce it. Shows like “Hart to Hart” and small screen versions of “Mr. and Mrs. North” and “Nick and Nora” would follow. By the way, there is a great article over at C.K. Dexter Haven’s Hollywood Dreamland that goes into more detail on this topic and is certainly worth checking out. Also, check out CK’s own review of “The Ex-Mrs. Bradford.”
Along with Mr. Powell as Dr. Lawrence Bradford, we have here the ever-charming Jean Arthur as Paula, the ex -Mrs. Bradford of the title. The script is by Anthony Veiller based on a story by James Edward Grant and directed by Stephen Roberts. Roberts career goes back to the silent days. His works include “The Story of Temple Drake” and “Star of Midnight”, another reworking of “The Thin Man” only here the couple are boyfriend and girlfriend though not surprisingly, it also stars William Powell, along with Ginger Rogers (Powell seemed to have a lock on this kind of role). “The Ex-Mrs. Bradford” was Roberts final film; he died only months later after its release.
Dr. Bradford is involved in a case of two jockeys who are mysteriously murdered. With the help of his eccentric somewhat ditzy mystery writer ex-wife Paula, the couple goes about solving the crimes though the good doctor becomes a prime suspect himself before unraveling the case and clearing his good name. It is all very light and entertaining though the level of wit is nowhere near the Thin Man films. Some of the comedy is telegraphed so far in advance that you get the message before it is delivered; still Powell and Arthur are a treat to watch, though Ms. Arthur comes across as too smart an actress to be convincing as featherbrained Paula. Watching her in this film, I started thinking how interesting it would be to see how she would have faired if she played Nora Charles in “The Thin Man.”
Powell is an old hand at this kind of story, having played Nick Charles for the second time, in “After the Thin Man” that same year for Paramount. A few years earlier, he was Philo Vance in a series of detective movies including “The Canary Murder Case” which coincidently had a young Jean Arthur as a showgirl. Nineteen Thirty Six was actually a big year for Powell. Along with the second Thin Man film, he also co-starred in two classic screwball comedies “My Man Godfrey” with Carole Lombard, “Libeled Lady” with Jean Harlow and Myrna Loy. Additionally, he appeared in “The Great Ziegfeld.” Jean Arthur made a big splash that same year in Capra’s “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town”
The film also co-stars Grant Mitchell, James Gleason and Robert Armstrong who most will recognize as Carl Denham from the original 1933 version of “King Kong.” While “The Ex-Mrs. Bradford” is entertaining, ultimately it is disappointing with a flat script, old jokes, a flimsy mystery and a sense that you have seen it all before and better done.
“The Ex-Mrs. Bradford” was released on VHS years some ago as part of the RKO Collection, however with no DVD release; it is now among the missing.
Twenty Four Frames 