Libeled Lady (1936)

Jean Harlow is my new favorite actress. She is the original blonde bombshell. I suppose that Marilyn Munroe did have more vulnerability, but I like Harlow for being the tough broad that she is, always a step ahead of the man, ready to head him off at the pass.

In real life she and William Powell were lovers and went to the Academy Awards together along with Clark Gable and Carole Lombard who was Powell's ex. It all sounds very free and 30s Hollywood.
I love Powell and Myrna Loy, so it's fun to find out who he personally was drawn to and see him play opposite her and Myrna in the same movie. In this movie he's the charming ex-newspaper man who is hired to seduce the heiress who is suing a newspaper for a false story.


In order to make his affair with ML a scandal, he has to be married to JH. It's quite entertaining, and I still don't know how it ends, which is good, but I'm really getting aggravated with Powell.


...

Okay, I finished watching - it was one of those comedies that keep you aggravated till the last second when of course it all works out. I know some people find those the best, but I felt aggravated on behalf of Spencer Tracy's character and Jean Harlow's character even AFTER they were all living happily ever after.

Well worth watching, some very fun, funny moments, but can't give it more than two stars and I WON'T watch it again.

It's also interesting to note that William Powell plays the same calm, wry, somewhat smug character out-witting everyone to his own advantage in these movies that he does in the Thin Man, but it's so much less sympathetic when he's outwitting people who you actually can care about like ST and JH's characters here.

Dark Victory (1939)

Starring Bette Davis as a rich playgirl who is diagnosed with a fatal disease that will steal her sight and then her life. She is so interesting to watch - as a self-absorbed, proud, spoiled young woman,

as a brave patient, as a grateful survivor enjoying life,

a spiteful woman, wronged by love and betrayed by her best friend,

as a doomed woman living recklessly without regard for her safety or her reputation,

and as a woman resigned to her fate, determined to live out what is left of her life in dignity.

It's like a full palette of human emotion, and she does it so well!

And yes, there is a Dr. McDreamy, too, and he doesn't have a wife.

Four stars, would watch again now - and yes, I'm becoming a total Bette Davis fan!

It Happened One Night (1934)

Very funny!
Four stars, will watch it again.

An heiress runs away from home and accidentally falls in with a reporter who is desperate to get her story. Sound familiar? Maybe you saw the more popular Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn? Yeah, very similar.



Clark Gable is very funny and the writing is awesome. They have a hysterical fight about what exactly a piggyback ride is and their non-stop bickering/negotiations as they tour the country trying to get to New York City keeps the movie moving.

I don't have anything else to say that doesn't spoil some other aspect of the movie.

A classic in every sense of the world.

Mr. Lucky (1943)

My Tivo's Cary Grant wishlist again. He is unbelievably sexy as a smooth-talking gangster who woos an heiress as part of a swindle. He teaches her cockney rhyming slang. She teaches him to tie a windsor knot.

He has an awesome cast of sailor and gangster sidekicks. She has an awesome wardrobe and a butler. They have great chemistry.

I'm going to call this "the other Casablanca" because there are so many similar elements: a reluctant hero, a gambling operation, a girl who's both innocent and savvy. Missing, of course, are the Nazis - this IS New York City. But I think you can see that, coming out a year later, it reflected a lot of the same themes.

I'm surmising (from what I remember of American history) that Americans still weren't entirely sure they wanted to BE in this war. By incorporating this moral struggle between self-preservation and saving the world from the (by now) clearly deranged and determined Nazis into the two main characters, the film let the general public work out for themselves where they stood. Most of all, it seems it was harder and harder for folks who are just out for themselves to justify their isolationist rationale. Frankly, they just look like cowards.

Anyway, four stars.
Plan to watch it again.