Libeled Lady

1936 "At the top of their game."
7.8| 1h38m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 09 October 1936 Released
Producted By: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

When a major newspaper accuses wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury of being a home-wrecker, and she files a multi-million-dollar libel lawsuit, the publication's frazzled head editor, Warren Haggerty, must find a way to turn the tables on her. Soon Haggerty's harried fiancée, Gladys Benton, and his dashing friend Bill Chandler are in on a scheme that aims to discredit Connie, with amusing and unexpected results.

Genre

Comedy, Romance

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Director

Jack Conway

Production Companies

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

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Libeled Lady Audience Reviews

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie
Console best movie i've ever seen.
Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
chauge-73253 "Libeled Lady" gives Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy co-top billing in this romantic comedy about a newspaper editor who sets up an elaborate ruse to keep an heiress from going through with a libel suit that could potentially shut down his newspaper if lost. Spencer Tracy plays the editor Warren Haggerty, who when he discovers that his newspaper published a story wrongfully accusing Connie Allenbury (Myrna Loy) of husband stealing, hatches a plan to head off the libel suit. Somehow, after leaving her on his wedding day to attend to the paper, Haggerty convinces his fiance Gladys Benton (Jean Harlow) to agree to marry his former reporter Bill Chandler (played by William Powell) and conspire with him to turn the tables on Connie. Are you with me here? Because it is all a bit confusing at first. So evidently Bill is contracted to seduce Connie and put her in a position where Gladys will walk in on them and cause enough of a scene in order to alert the media. The plan then is that the embarrassment of the ordeal will convince Connie to drop the suit. You have to swallow some feelings of incredulity here that first of all Gladys would agree to all this and Chandler is some suave ladies' man who can charm Connie into dropping this suit. William Powell is a fine actor but I never really see him as a leading man. With his average looks and wisecracking personality, I'm surprised he wasn't pigeonholed into supporting character roles. Although the film is co-billed with the four of them, it is really just another William Powell-Myrna Loy film, with Tracy and Harlow mostly playing supporting roles. The acting and comedic timing is first rate by all, but the wrting and editing are hit-and-miss at times. Overall it is an entertaining film worth a watch if anything to see Jean Harlow in one of her last films.
richspenc Spencer Tracy is managing editor of New York newspaper that gets sued by Myrna Loy, daughter of rich tycoon Walter Ganolly. Spencer's wife to be Jean Harlow is getting very restless about getting married already, to the point of bursting into the newspaper office in her wedding gown screaming at Spencer "today I am getting married!" This scene is a very close parallel to the scene of the 1948 remake of this film "Easy to wed" with Kenan Wynn in the Spencer role and Lucille Ball in the Harlow role. A lot of the same lines were copied there such as "this newspaper is facing a libel suit", "and you're facing a breach of promise suit!" and "nobody talks to me like a house detective!". Also, I'm quite sure the senior manager of the paper that yells "get this woman outta here!" is played by the same guy. At least this film doesn't have Harlow carried out of the office by bouncers while screaming like with Ball in the remake. I found that a little too much. William Powell plays the man Spencer is searching for to help get the newspaper out of its bind. Spencer calls San Francisco, Reno, Atlanta, and ven Hong Kong and Australia trying to find him, and he ends up being at a hotel in town. Things in real life are like that sometimes, you search everywhere but under your nose, which is where it turns up. Powell must be staged to marry Harlow, with some amusing scenes where Harlow and Powell must fake their love to avoid suspicion. Also funny when Harlow kisses Spencer in front of the priest. "They're old friends", Powell tells the bewildered priest. Harlow and Spencer kiss again. "Really old friends" Powell then says. Powell then meets up with Myrna Loy and her dad Ganolly on a transAtlantic ship where he must continue the charade. Powell asks a ship clerk to bring him some encyclopedias so he can learn about what the guy he's pretending to be is supposed to know, such as about trout fishing. So then he can discuss his "life hobbies" to Ganolly. Of course today, one wouldn't ask for encyclopedias to learn information about something, they'd just google it on their smartphone. This overbearing woman and her daughter keep clinging to Powell, Loy, and Ganolly, and they must keep lying in order to avoid them. Many of these scenes just mentioned were copied in "Easy to wed". I love Esther Williams, but "Easy to wed" wasn't one of her better films. "Liabel lady" was the better of the two. There are more great scenes, such as the lake trip with Powell and Myrna. This is another film with Powell and Myrna together just like in the wonderful "The great Ziegfeld" and "The thin man". Those two had fabulous chemistry together. Myrna Loy's such a cute sweetheart of a girl, just like Ruby Keeler. Powell is sort of a ladies' man. He has both Harlow and Loy falling for him in this film. I won't spoil the ending in this review.
mmallon4 The opening credits of Libeled Lady are not your typical list of screen names, instead we get footage of the four main stars walking arm in arm very happily as their names come on screen one by one. Four heavy weights in roles which play to their strengths, giving some of the best dialogue the screwball comedy has to offer. Libeled Lady is my favourite newspaper comedy, a world in which journalistic ethics are nonexistent and people struggle to make relationships and careers in journalism mix. Warren Haggerty (Spencer Tracy) is so preoccupied with his job as the managing editor of a paper he has missed his own wedding several times, so no surprise Jean Harlow gives a very comically angry performance throughout most of the film.William Powell's Bill Chandler has such cool and confidence, he even draws his own contract which will bring him back to the paper he was sacked from as he knows Warren Haggerty will come looking for him following a scandal. Powell gets the chance to show the full range of his comic abilities, not only as a master of words but also gets showcase slapstick comedy similar in vain to Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin during the film's fishing scene. The subplot of Bill Chandler learning to fish would be the basis of Howard Hawk's comedy Mans' Favorite Sport?. Despite how incredibly fast he picks up the ability to fish like an expert it doesn't feel contrived. A portion of the story is spent trying to find William Powell with telephone, telegraph and radio as their means of communication. Outdated aspects like in old movies always intrigues me and makes me ponder if stories like this could be told today. With the internet and other modern communication devices they could have been able to recall those newspapers at the start of the film. Likewise publications today are no less obsessed with covering the escapades of socialites and people famous for being famous; but Connie Allenbury (Myrna Loy) is not a typical socialite. She is down to Earth, has an image distorted by the media and can even outwit the paper. It's appropriate this role would be played by Myrna Loy; the so called only good girl in Hollywood.
MikeMagi "Libeled Lady" is a screwball spree for its four superbly cast stars. Spencer Tracy as a newspaper editor so devoted to his scandal sheet that he's a no-show at his own wedding...for the 20th time. Jean Harlow as his brash, brassy would-be bride. William Powell as a lady's man hired to con an heiress into dropping a libel suit that could put Tracy's paper out of business. And Myrna Loy as the cool deb who'd like just once to be loved for herself, not her father's fortune. As the story zips along from a trans-Atlantic voyage to an "arranged" marriage to a lunatic lesson in fly-fishing, the laughs and surprises are non-stop.