Silly Fun

Movies!, channel 5–2 on OTA in NYC, offered another treat last night, Libeled Lady (1936), a screwball comedy, fast-paced silly fun. Myrna Loy stars as an heiress suing a newspaper for defamation. Spencer Tracy plays the publication’s manager, dealing with the emergency that has put his wedding to Jean Harlow on hold. He hires Dick Powell to sully Loy’s reputation so that she will be forced to drop the suit. The dialogue often crackles. Here’s my favorite exchange, Harlow is Gladys:
Gladys: Driver, can’t you go any faster?
Cab Driver: I can lady, but the cab can’t.
The screenplay was written by Howard Emmett Rogers, George Oppenheimer and Maurine Dallas Watkins, the latter one of the creators of Chicago back in 1927. The flick was directed by Jack Conway, a Hollywood stalwart. From 1900-’35 he acted in 105 movies. He then went behind the camera and directed 114. Other notable works: Viva Villa! (1934), Manhattan Melodrama (1934), A Tale of Two Cities (1935) and uncredited work on A Star Is Born (1937) and Northwest Passage (1940). He passed away at 65 in 1952. Tragically, Harlow died of kidney failure at 26 due to a complication of her scarlet fever as a child that compromised her immune system, and binge drinking later in life. Here are the superstars in character in a scene just before the end of the film. Photo from Google Images:

Maybe this insult will get pols to act, headline from foxnews.com: “Immigrant store owner begs San Francisco for help after losing $100K to burglars: ‘Worse than Afghanistan’.”

Not much action at the floating book shop on this unusually cool day. My thanks to the sweet elderly woman who did a swap of Russian books, and to the gentleman who selected a Crosby, Stills & Nash DVD, Baseball for Dummies and Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters, Vol. 1, 1940–1956 by Jack Kerouac and Ann Charters; and to the mom who purchased Setting Up a Freshwater Aquarium: An Owner’s Guide to a Happy Healthy Pet by Gregory Skomal for her excited pre-teen son; and to the mom who bought The Runaway Jury by John Grisham for her teen son; and to the couple who took home a hardcover in Russian.

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