Carole Lombard, Charles Winninger, Fredric March

A screwball comedy about the phony glitter and self-serving shenanigans that constitute daily life in New York City, which centers on Hazel Flagg, a young Vermont woman dying of radium poisoning who i...( read more  read more... )s whisked off to the Big Apple, for a final heartwrenching fling by a savvy newspaperman, Wallace Cook.

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70% liked it

1,197 ratings

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100% liked it

9 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 15 min.

Directed by: William A. Wellman

Release Date: November 25, 1937

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DVD Release Date: July 23, 1997

Stats: 67 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (67)


  • January 11, 2009
    Not only was Nothing Sacred the first Technicolor screwball comedy, it's also the only colour movie Carole Lombard ever made, so it pains me to confess that I'd probably like it better if it'd been shot in black & white! Doubtless viewed at the time as adding a touch of c...( read more)lass, the colour photography is drab and does nothing for the picture, and the sets are equally ugly. I cannot think of this film without bringing to mind a particularly sickly shade of blue!

    The tastelessness of the central conceit - country girl, misdiagnosed with terminal radium poisoning, shams illness to enjoy an all-expenses-paid trip to New York - ensures that the movie retains a freshness, despite the fact that some of the gags have not aged so well. In particular, the sequence where the nightclub emcee introduces the "Heroines of History" is fairly excruciating, and I'm usually also able to restrain my mirth when Fredric March socks Lombard on the jaw, though the rest of that scene is hilarious.

    My only criticism of the excellent cast is that the usually brilliant Sig Ruman is badly wasted as Emil Eggelhoffer, the expert on radium poisoning who exposes Lombard; he is far funnier in Billy Wilder's The Fortune Cookie, playing practically the same part. Some of the dialogue is priceless! My favourite exchange:
    - HAZEL FLAGG: You know, I'm not going to bed until I have convulsions and my teeth start falling out! That's when I begin worrying? Is it, Enoch?
    - DR ENOCH DOWNER: It's as good a time as any.
  • December 19, 2007
    great cynical screwball comedy starring the loveliest and most elegant comedienne of any era, ms carole lombard
  • October 15, 2008
    'Nothing Sacred' Still On-Target 70 Years Later

    Breezy but pointed satire of hypocrisy and the press, as Carole Lombard (there's something sexy about a funny woman) as Hazel Flagg fakes an incurable illness to be the toast of New York while Fredric March and his newspaper milk h...( read more)er sob story for every column inch they can. Just as relevant today as in 1937; there's a TV commercial where for $20 you can buy a gold coin with silver "recovered from safes below Ground Zero"-molded twin towers that pop out and can be mounted in a groove in the coin so the towers can "soar as a shining testament" to blah blah. That'll show those extremists where they're wrong, that'll help the families lost. No, it'll only help the people who buy it feel better about themselves and think, "Look how much I care, I have a gold & silver coin to prove it." Just like the people out on the town standing and applauding Miss Flagg for her bravery as the emcee introduces her as a special guest while the flashbulbs pop to capture her plight. The Wicked Witch of the West has a funny bit as a general store owner too! Best line comes from the newspaper editor (amusingly named Oliver Stone): "Is she still alive?? Don't spare my feelings, we go to press in 15 minutes!"
  • November 5, 2008
    Fredric March and Carole Lombard together--hilarious!!!
  • May 6, 2007
    This movie is SO FUNNY. I loved it.
  • March 9, 2007
    good movie,interesting story!!!
  • February 18, 2007
    Classic, classic. Freddie gets a good swing at Lombard. Oh, boy!
  • February 7, 2007
    CAROLE LOMBARD IS A COMEDIC LEGEND
  • February 4, 2007
    An often-overlooked comic gem.

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Nothing Sacred Trivia


  • In this quote from William Wellman's classic comedy "Nothing Sacred", the name of which film director is removed? Before I finish with that female Dracula, she'll know one thing: that ______ _____ is worse than radium poisoning four ways from the jack!  Answer »

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