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Jack Conway - Libeled Lady (1936)

Posted By: amlo01

Date: 18 Aug 2011 18:33:51

Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy, and William Powell star in this crackling screwball comedy about a cut-throat newspaper editor's scheme to prevent a libel suit that ends up exploding in everybody's face. Tracy plays Warren Haggerty, the managing editor of a newspaper that mistakenly prints a story declaring the rich Connie Allenbury (Myrna Loy) has stolen away another woman's husband. Connie retaliates by suing the paper for $5 million. This happens right before Warren is about to marry his fiancee Gladys (Jean Harlow). As he has done several times in the past, Warren delays the wedding in order to stop the libel suit. Warren hires Bill Chandler (William Powell), a former employer who is desperate for a job, to marry Gladys in name only and then court Connie. That way, Gladys can sue Connie for alienation of affections and get Connie to agree to drop her lawsuit if Gladys will drop hers. Bill hops an ocean liner to accompany Connie and her father (Walter Connolly) back to the United States, but along the way Bill and Connie fall in love and Bill tries to convince Gladys to drop her suit so it won't hinder his relationship with Connie. (Paul Brenner @ allrovi.com)

Review by Brian Koller @ filmsgraded:
William Powell and Myrna Loy made fourteen films together, usually cast as a romantic couple. The Thin Man (1934) is the most famous of their films, most of which were comedies. But Libeled Lady is better than The Thin Man, and also better than two more famous films from 1936 also starring William Powell, The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and My Man Godfrey (1936).
The plot of Libeled Lady is vaguely similar to many Hollywood comedies of the era. There's an engagement that goes awry on the wedding day, as in the Cary Grant films Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and His Girl Friday (1940). There are the usual romantic betrayals and misunderstandings.
The surprise is how well it all works. The slapstick, one-liners, and unexpected plot twists fit together well. The cast is excellent, and the script and gags are often hilarious. The film actually gets better as it moves along. By the time Spencer Tracy fumes "She may be his wife, but she's engaged to me!" you'll be laughing. There's no doubt.

Jack Conway - Libeled Lady (1936)

Perhaps the best line, though, is given to Jean Harlow. She is watching Powell receive fishing lessons on how to cast a line. The instructor goes through a silly, elaborate verbal setup to make the hotel room seem like a trout stream. Harlow blurts out, "Remember, there's a man on second!". Transparently non sequitur, the wisecrack catches both the pretentiousness of the instructor, and the futility of a man trying to become an expert fisherman in a single day.
The story has newspaper editor Haggerty (Spencer Tracy) engaged to Gladys (Harlow). It is their wedding day, but once again Haggerty calls it off. He will lose his job unless he can prevent a five million dollar lawsuit against the paper, filed by flamboyant heiress Connie Allenbury (Myrna Loy). The paper has falsely accused Connie of breaking up a marriage.
Haggerty schemes to trap Connie into actually ruining a marriage, so that the story will no longer be libelous. He hires an old rival, Chandler (Powell), to wed Gladys and then romance Connie. Of course, nothing goes as anyone has expected. Waylaid plans lead to screwball antics, and increasingly comic (and confusing) romantic relationships.

Jack Conway - Libeled Lady (1936)

Never mind that in real life, no woman (much less one played by Harlow) would put up with the shenanigans that Haggerty puts her through. Never mind that suspicious heiress Allenbury would be furious with Chandler once she learned of his duplicity. But if the situations and relationships seem ridiculous, perhaps that is how it is supposed to be. Powell may never have been better, although his Best Actor Oscar nomination for the year was for My Man Godfrey (1936) instead.
In real life, Harlow was engaged to Powell at the time. Their marriage was prevented by her sudden death the following year, 1937, during the production of another Powell/Loy pairing, Double Wedding (1937).
Libeled Lady proved to be the best film in the career of veteran director Jack Conway. Conway also had a success the year prior, with the melodramatic A Tale of Two Cities (1935). Unluckily, his future projects, which included reunions with each of the four leads in Libeled Lady, were not as memorable.
Libeled Lady only received one Academy Award nomination. However, it was for the most prestigious of the Oscars, Best Picture. It lost to Powell's The Great Ziegfeld (1936). In 1946, the film was remade as Easy to Wed. (Written: Mar 20 '00)

MediaInfo

DVD-Rip AVI XVID | 704 x 528 | 0.18 bpp | AC-3 192 Kbps | English & French subtitles

General
File Name : Libeled Lady (1936).avi
Format : AVI
File size : 1.24 GiB
Duration : 1h 38mn
Overall bit rate : 1 800 Kbps

Video
Format : MPEG-4 Visual Advanced Simple@L5
Codec ID : XVID
Resolution : 704 x 528 pixels
Bit rate : 1 599 Kbps
Aspect ratio : 1.333
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Bits per Pixel : 0.179 bit/pixel

Audio 0
Format : AC-3
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Language : English

included in the archieve: English & French subtitles (.srt)

Thank You To milta @ rutracker

Screenshots (Click to enlarge)