Nothing Sacred (1937): watch the full film free, legally

A false story sends Wally to Vermont

Nothing Sacred is a 1937 American Technicolor screwball comedy directed by William A. Wellman and produced by David O. Selznick. Carole Lombard and Fredric March star, with Charles Winninger and Walter Connolly in the supporting cast. Selznick International Pictures made the film, and United Artists distributed it. Its opening credits use Sam Berman’s distinctive caricatures: three-dimensional figurines for the leading actors and two-dimensional cartoons for creative artists.

New York newspaper reporter Wally Cook has already made a damaging mistake. He reported that Harlem bootblack Ernest Walker was a nobleman “of the Orient” holding a charity event, and Cook says he did not know the claim was false. His boss, Oliver Stone, demotes him to writing obituaries. Looking for another opportunity, Cook points to a report about Hazel Flagg, a woman said to be dying from radium poisoning.

Stone sends Cook to the fictional town of Warsaw, Vermont, to find Hazel and interview her. Cook eventually discovers her crying for two reasons. Her doctor has told her that she is not dying, yet the news also makes her fear she may spend her entire life in Vermont. Cook does not know this when he invites Hazel and her doctor to New York as guests of the Morning Star newspaper.

The paper uses Hazel’s supposed illness to raise circulation. In New York, she receives a ticker-tape parade and the key to the city, while becoming an inspiration to many people. Hazel and Wally fall in love. He asks her to marry him, still believing that she is dying.

Color, projection and a changing screenplay

Nothing Sacred was the first screwball comedy filmed in color. It was also the first color film to use process effects, montage, and rear screen projection. The backgrounds used for the rear projection were filmed on New York streets. Paramount Pictures, 20th Century-Fox, and other studios later refined the technique in their own color features. W. Howard Greene shot the film in Technicolor, and James E. Newcom edited it.

Ben Hecht received screenplay credit for adapting James H. Street’s 1937 story “Letter to the Editor,” first published in Hearst’s International-Cosmopolitan. Hecht was credited with writing the screenplay in two weeks on a train. His credited work was joined by uncredited contributions from Ring Lardner Jr., Budd Schulberg, Dorothy Parker, Sidney Howard, Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman, and Robert Carson.

Hecht wrote a role for his friend John Barrymore, but Selznick declined to use Barrymore because he had become an alcoholic. The dispute created a rift between Hecht and Selznick, and Hecht left the picture. Schulberg and Parker were called in to write the final scenes. Selznick, Wellman, Howard, Hart, Kaufman, and Carson also contributed to the screenplay. Production began on June 12, 1937, and ended on August 2, 1937.

Oscar Levant composed the lush, Gershwinesque score. Alfred Newman and Max Steiner supplied additional music, while Raymond Scott’s Quintette provided a swing number. Nothing Sacred was Lombard’s only feature-length Technicolor film, and she said it was one of her personal favorites. According to William Wellman Jr., Janet Gaynor had first been cast as Hazel Flagg, but became unavailable after Wellman met Lombard and persuaded Selznick to cast her. Boxing world champion Maxie Rosenbloom gave Lombard lessons for her fight scene with March.

Loss at the box office and later screening

Despite critical acclaim, Nothing Sacred lost $350,000 at the box office. Its comedy is accompanied by cynical themes of corruption and dishonesty, including a caricature of the methods some newspapers used to obtain a “hot” story. The film was selected for the Venice Classics section of the 75th Venice International Film Festival in July 2018.

In 1965, the film entered the public domain in the United States after its copyright owners did not renew the copyright registration in the 28th year after publication. In 2011, Kino Lorber issued DVD and Blu-ray editions mastered from a 2K scan of Selznick’s personal nitrate print, preserved by the George Eastman House Motion Picture Department. Kino reissued the Blu-ray in 2018 from a 2K scan of Disney’s 1999 restoration, carried out for ABC, holder of most of the Selznick library.

Hecht’s screenplay later became the basis for the 1953 Broadway musical Hazel Flagg, featuring Helen Gallagher, and the 1954 comedy film Living It Up. That film starred Dean Martin in the Winninger role, Jerry Lewis in the Lombard role as Homer Flagg, and Janet Leigh in the March role.

Film details from the Wikipedia article “Nothing Sacred (film)”. Text adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0.