Kino has released what they call “the only version of the of the original film authorized for release from the estate of David O. Selznick.”
The film is Nothing Sacred, the stars are Carole Lombard and Fredric March, and it’s one of our favorite screwballs.
Fredric March plays Wally Cook, a Madhattan newspaper reporter who visits a small Vermont town to interview Hazel Flagg (Lombard) who, misdiagnosed by her doctor, claims to be dying of radium poisoning. Cook brings Hazel back to the big city, where he cooks up plans to serialize her story. The public sucks up her sob story and Hazel becomes the toast of the town, a heroine and first-rate star.
March and Lombard sizzle in what is as much an hysterical satire of the Fourth Estate as it is the need for celebrity.
The film, shot in three-strip Technicolor, has only been available in public domain versions, gritty and grainy and (almost) unwatchable. Trivia side notes: Noted boxer Maxie Rosenbloom, who is also in the film, gave boxing lessons to Lombard for her “fight” scenes with March. Helen Gallagher fans know it was the basis for the 1952 flop Broadway musical Hazel Flagg; Two years later, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin starred in Living it Up, with the character of Hazel Flagg re-written as a male played by Lewis; Cook was rewritten and played by Janey Leigh.
Kino is releasing the flick in Blu-ray as well. Kudos, Kino.
We cannot leave without telling the tragic end of Hollywood’s greatest screwball comedienne. Lombard had just sold $2,017,531 in war bonds, and told the Indianapolis crowds greeting her, “Before I say goodbye to you all, come on! Join me in a big cheer: V for victory!” She then flipped a coin to determine the best way to get back to Hollywood and her husband, Clark Gable. Train (she called it the “choo-choo”) or plane? At 4 in the morning, Carole, along with her mother and publicist, piled in a TWA twin engine DC-3 at the Indianapolis Airport. “When I get home,” Lombard told a Life photographer at the airport, “I’ll flop in bed and sleep for twelve hours.”
After refueling in Las Vegas, the plane took off at 7:07 p.m., flying at an altitude of 8,100 feet and 13 degrees off-course. Twenty-three minutes later, the plane smashed into Table Rock Mountain, 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas. All 22 passengers were instantly killed, including 15 military personnel. Two days later, Carole’s charred remains were pulled from the snowy wreckage site; her body was found in the front section of the fuselage and she was identified by “a wisp of unscorched blond hair.”
The Army offered a military funeral to honor the first star to give her life to the war effort, but Gable refused and carried out Carole’s wishes for a swift interment. What remained of Lombard (and by all account it was little; the tuft of hair, remnants of the black gloves and strapless evening gown she had been wearing) was buried in a special white gown made by designer Irene and, in accordance with her will, was interred in a “modestly priced crypt” at Forest Lawn. When he died in 1960, Gable was laid to rest next to Lombard, though he had remarried twice. This was a move Gable’s then-wife, Kay, insisted upon. When asked by a reporter where Gable would be buried, she simply said, “With Carole, of course. She was his greatest love.”
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