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Title: Lombard Elevates Screwball Comedy From Mundane
Review: "Nothing Sacred" is something of a letdown because it doesn't deliver on it's promising premise. For sure there are any number of chuckles here but nothing that really aches the funnybone. The comedy is played too broadly to have any real resonance. It doesn't really work as a satire on yellow journalism for that same reason. The revelation here is the work of Carol Lombard who plays a smalltown girl who fakes radiation poisoning to parlay it into fame and fortune in the Big Apple. Lombard is a deft comedian who effortlessly straddles the lighter and broader comedic elements of her character and loses none of her glamour in the process. Frederic March, however, is something of a stiff here appearing to sleepwalk his way through his role as Lombard's benefactor from the New York tabloid.
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