Libeled Lady (1936)
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Libeled Lady Movie Review
Libeled Lady is a 1936 screwball comedy film directed by Jack Conway and starring Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy. It’s a pretty good, fun flick.
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“She may be his wife,
but she’s engaged to me!“
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A newspaper man, his ignored fiancée, and his former employee, a down on his luck reporter, hatch an elaborate scheme to turn a false news story into the truth in order to prevent a high-society woman from suing for libel. Yes, this is a very implausible storyline, even for screwball comedy standards.
It simply felt overly convoluted, and although fun, the plot doesn’t ring true enough. Yes, that chaos led to many very amusing moments throughout, and in particular that ending was very original how it ended abruptly on a humorous note, but still the movie overall is a bit too convoluted in terms of storytelling.
But the characters themselves are uniformly great, and the actors playing them. This is such an amazing ensemble cast with all four players playing off each other wonderfully. Jean Harlow is terrific in what is tragically one of her last roles. She’s very likable here.
Spencer Tracy is also fine in what is a rare screwball comedy role for him. It’s a shame that he rarely got such roles when he really fits them well. But of course Myrna Loy and William Powell are the best parts of this ensemble per usual. They have been a great pairing throughout the decade, and this is no exception. She is very interesting while he is quite funny per usual.
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Libeled Lady has terrific dialogue as always for the genre. It is very brisk, sometimes even incredibly fast, but you can hear some highly provocative lines here and there, with some sexual ones being instantly iconic.
The humor is also excellent, and the film is very well shot as well as directed. But again, the pacing is too fast, the film is too convoluted and not well structured at all, and all of that led to it being just very good, but not great. But it still is one of the best Oscar nominees for that year.
Libeled Lady is structurally problematic, and simply too implausible and convoluted in its storyline, but still it is very entertaining throughout, and featuring many hilarious lines of dialogue. It mostly benefits from a terrific ensemble cast where Myrna Loy, William Powell, Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow all played off each other phenomenally.
