Nothing Sacred (1937)

Featured Audience Ratings

• AJ V

  
  Although the romantic side of this movie is predictable, the comedy is good, and the story is interesting. It's not the best movie, but still pretty entertaining.

• Stephen M

  
  Not only was <I>Nothing Sacred</I> 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… More
  Not only was <I>Nothing Sacred</I> 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 class, 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 <i>The Fortune Cookie</i>, 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.

• Stella D

  
  great cynical screwball comedy starring the loveliest and most elegant comedienne of any era, ms carole lombard

• Doctor S

  
  '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… More
  '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 her 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!"