Nothing Sacred
About Nothing Sacred
New York reporter Wally Cook is demoted to obituaries after he builds up a Harlem bootblack as an Oriental nobleman. He gets a second chance with Hazel Flagg of Warsaw, Vermont, said to be dying of radium poisoning. Hazel has just learned she is not dying, and she is crying because she may be stuck in Vermont. Wally, who does not know that, brings her and her doctor to New York for the Morning Star. She gets a parade and the key to the city. They fall in love. Four doctors then find she is healthy. The paper would rather pretend she has gone off to die. She and Wally marry and sail for the tropics.
Cast & crew
More about Nothing Sacred
David O. Selznick produced. William A. Wellman directed. Ben Hecht is credited for the screenplay, from James H. Street's 1937 story Letter to the Editor. Uncredited work came from Ring Lardner Jr., Budd Schulberg, Dorothy Parker, Sidney Howard, Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman, and Robert Carson. W. Howard Greene shot it in Technicolor. James E. Newcom edited. United Artists released it. United States and Canada rentals were $2,000,000, and the picture still showed a loss of $350,000. Carole Lombard plays Hazel. Fredric March plays Wally. Charles Winninger is Dr. Enoch Downer. Walter Connolly is Oliver Stone.
Themes
Background
A United Artists release of 25 November 1937, from Selznick International, using three-strip Technicolor on a newspaper comedy.
Making
Selznick's company made it in color when screwball comedies were still black and white. The New York parade and the fake death watch are played as newspaper stunts.
Audiences
Domestic rentals of $2,000,000 still left a recorded loss of $350,000.
Look
W. Howard Greene shot three-strip Technicolor, including process shots, montage, and rear projection, tools the film is credited with bringing into a color feature.
Technique
Called the first screwball comedy filmed in color, and an early color feature to use process photography, montage, and rear projection together.
Music
Oscar Levant wrote the score, with added music by Alfred Newman and Max Steiner. Raymond Scott's Quintette plays a swing number, and Scott appears as the bandleader.
Preservation
In the public domain in the United States since 1965. George Eastman House preserved Selznick's personal nitrate print. Kino Lorber's 2011 disc used a 2K scan of that print. The 2018 Blu-ray uses Disney's 1999 restoration, made for ABC.
Notes
- Lombard's only feature-length film in Technicolor. She called it one of her favorites.
- Sam Berman drew the opening-credit caricatures: the leads as little figures, the writers and crew as flat cartoons.
- Margaret Hamilton plays a Vermont drugstore woman. Hattie McDaniel plays Mrs. Walker. Sig Ruman plays Dr. Emil Eggelhoffer. Frank Fay is a master of ceremonies.
- Copyright was not renewed. It entered the public domain in the United States in 1965.
- Screened in the Venice Classics section of the 2018 Venice festival.
Scenes
- Hazel cries in Vermont because the doctor says she will live.
- New York gives her a parade while the diagnosis is still a lie.
- She and Wally leave by ship after the paper agrees to pretend she has gone off to die.
Influenced by
- James H. Street's story Letter to the Editor (1937)
Also available
- Internet Archive (NothingSacred)
- Kino Lorber Blu-ray (2018)
