Only David O. Selznick could get away with making a thoroughly mean-spirited raspberry to media manipulation during the Production Code's early vigorous enforcement. This is hopefully the only screwball comedy where our leading man knocks out our leading woman on the jaw in order to silence her for medical professionals. Don't worry too much though, since our leading lady is Carole Lombard, she makes sure that her co-star, Frederic March, gets his jaw socked as well.
For anyone who thinks that Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder were the first ones to tackle acidic comedies, I gleefully point them to this film where there's not one single likable person to be found in the admittedly impressive cast. At some point, you'd wish that all of them would get radium poisoning and die violently for your amusement. Even Carole Lombard has her moments where she's an awful, terrible person. She only goes along with her faux-poisoning in order to see New York, as well as to get out of her spiteful small town.
Its main theme on the timeless tradition of rotten media exploiting tragedies for national relevance is so cynical in execution that it makes Ace in the Hole briefly look like Andy Hardy. Sadly, it's still relevant as our media is so captivated with sensationalism that we have breaking tragedies occur without any real change resulting from them.
Naturally, I'm expected to hate this one instead of sympathizing with it - I'm definitely not a fan of being-cynical-for-the-sake-of-being-cynical. This film is admittedly guilty of not deciding what tone it needs to focus on, which makes it even more malicious in its rebelliousness. It's also guilty of not having hindsight in joke material, as it features a lot of anti-humor in the disguise of punchlines.
However, the frankly smug film is smarter than its purposefully immature characters. Deep down, it knows that everyone is a rotten, terrible monster who really don't deserve their privilege. This is what makes it so uncomfortably fresh - it refuses to gloss over its worldview and instead shows it in all its ugly shades. Unlike most of the glitzy fluff that Hollywood cranked out at the time, this film is still razor sharp all these decades later.
Moreover, Carole Lombard and Frederic March are perfectly cast as the only remotely likable characters; you really do get terrific chemistry between them to the point you sort of forgive them for hitting each other. Plus, it's the rare classic Hollywood film where you get to see someone actually giving the screen an unusual gesture. Again, Selznick was really persuasive with the censors.
For anyone who thinks that Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder were the first ones to tackle acidic comedies, I gleefully point them to this film where there's not one single likable person to be found in the admittedly impressive cast. At some point, you'd wish that all of them would get radium poisoning and die violently for your amusement. Even Carole Lombard has her moments where she's an awful, terrible person. She only goes along with her faux-poisoning in order to see New York, as well as to get out of her spiteful small town.
Its main theme on the timeless tradition of rotten media exploiting tragedies for national relevance is so cynical in execution that it makes Ace in the Hole briefly look like Andy Hardy. Sadly, it's still relevant as our media is so captivated with sensationalism that we have breaking tragedies occur without any real change resulting from them.
Naturally, I'm expected to hate this one instead of sympathizing with it - I'm definitely not a fan of being-cynical-for-the-sake-of-being-cynical. This film is admittedly guilty of not deciding what tone it needs to focus on, which makes it even more malicious in its rebelliousness. It's also guilty of not having hindsight in joke material, as it features a lot of anti-humor in the disguise of punchlines.
However, the frankly smug film is smarter than its purposefully immature characters. Deep down, it knows that everyone is a rotten, terrible monster who really don't deserve their privilege. This is what makes it so uncomfortably fresh - it refuses to gloss over its worldview and instead shows it in all its ugly shades. Unlike most of the glitzy fluff that Hollywood cranked out at the time, this film is still razor sharp all these decades later.
Moreover, Carole Lombard and Frederic March are perfectly cast as the only remotely likable characters; you really do get terrific chemistry between them to the point you sort of forgive them for hitting each other. Plus, it's the rare classic Hollywood film where you get to see someone actually giving the screen an unusual gesture. Again, Selznick was really persuasive with the censors.