From star to superstar

If 1936 was a watershed year for Carole Lombard, 1937 wasn't too bad either. Lombard starred in three films released in 1937, all of which were critical and box office successes. Swing High, Swing Low was the highest grossing film for Paramount Studios in 1937 as well as being one of the biggest box office hits of the year.

Lombard and MacMurray: Together again
Swing High, Swing Low was directed by Mitchell Leisen and costarred Lombard once again with Fred MacMurray. Not well regarded today because it seems to be one part screwball comedy, one part melodrama, and one part musical. What seemed innovative and inventive when first released seems a bit muddled and confusing to modern viewers. Frank S. Nugent in the New York Times wrote, "Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray skip through the formula devices of "Swing High, Swing Low" (nee "Burlesque") with their usual ease at the Paramount, raising a routine story to a routine-plus picture. The plus is extremely small, sometimes being almost invisible." Nugent ended his review by stating, "Its players really are worthy of better treatment." Still it has its moments and the Lombard/MacMurray chemistry delighted film-going audiences and most other contemporary film critics.

Lombard's next film for 1937 would be the much-heralded Nothing Sacred, costarring Fredric March with a script by Ben Hecht and direction by William A. Wellman. Produced by David O. Selznick, the film was given the A-treatment. Selznick spared no expense when it came to the film's production, including filming it in Technicolor, still a rare event in the late 1930s, especially for comedies. Nothing Sacred has the distinction of being the only color film Lombard ever made. The story goes that some people went to see the film just to get a glimpse of Lombard's beauty in color and they weren't disappointed: she looked luminous.

She's the top

One of the ironies of Lombard's career is how quickly she began to eclipse the stars that she used to support. In 1934, Lombard appeared with Fredric March in The Eagle and the Hawk, a film in which he received top billing. In less than three year's time, Lombard was the bigger star when they made Nothing Sacred, with her name above March's. Cary Grant, who also starred in The Eagle and the Hawk, billed above Lombard, but below March, would be billed under Lombard in In Name Only, released in 1939. In a relatively short period, Lombard was becoming one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.



Liar, liar
Lombard's last release of 1937 was True Confession,  with MacMurray and John Barrymore, her costar (again she's the bigger star now) from her breakthrough film, Twentieth Century. True Confession stars Lombard as a struggling fiction writer and habitual liar. MacMurray, her husband, is a straight-arrow lawyer who will only defend people he knows aren't guilty. Since they're both working hard to make ends meet, Lombard just doesn't understand how her husband can be so choosy about who he represents. To help out with the finances, Lombard secretly takes a job that doesn't require any skills, but pays a remarkable $50 for not even a full week's work! It doesn't take long for Lombard to realize that the job is mistress to the boss. Being an honorable, if a bit daffy wife, she quits almost immediately. When her boss ends up dead, with Lombard implicated in his murder, she concocts a story that helps get her acquitted of the murder and generates publicity to further her husband's law career.

True Confession was directed by Wesley Ruggles, who directed Lombard in No Man of Her Own. Ruggles was an early champion of Lombard's, considering her an actress of great depth and potential. Unfortunately for Lombard, Ruggles didn't run the the star factory at Paramount, where she was under contract, or her star might have risen sooner.

With three hit films, both commercially and critically, it seemed as if anything Lombard touched would turn to gold. Her relationship with Clark Gable was blossoming and her film career was approaching its zenith. But for Lombard, there were still more things she wanted to accomplish as a star and as an actress. The next few years would test her talent, resolve, and resiliency.

Carole Lombard: The Divine Screwball

A genre and a star is born
With the exception of perhaps Cary Grant, no movie star has been more identified with screwball comedy than Carole Lombard. In fact, if it weren’t for Lombard, the genre might not have received its name. “Miss Lombard has played screwball dames before…she needs only a resin bag to be a female Rube Waddell.” So said Variety in 1936, comparing Lombard’s performance, as Irene Bullock in My Man Godfrey, to the nineteenth-century baseball legend known for his screwball pitches.
 
Risk taker
From her breakthrough role in Twentieth Century (1934) opposite John Barrymore, it was apparent that a comic genius was born. Lombard could have become a typical Hollywood leading lady on her movie star looks alone, but instead she jumped head-first into screwball comedies, taking on roles that often downplayed her natural beauty. She took comedic risks that few women in Hollywood were willing to take and it paid off big time. The public loved Lombard, and they loved her screwball heroines.

At the top of her game
By the mid-1930s, Lombard was one of the top box office draws, besting Janet Gaynor, Bette Davis, Jean Harlow, and Katherine Hepburn. She was also on a winning streak with films like Hands Across the Table, Love Before Breakfast, The Princess Comes Across, My Man Godfrey, and Nothing Sacred.

Enduring popularity
Lombard tried her hand at drama with some success, but the public loved her screwball persona best and it’s the comedies that have endured. Even by today’s standards, Lombard’s performances seem strikingly fresh and contemporary.  If it wasn't for her untimely death in 1942, who knows what heights she could have reached. Even so, few have risen so high.

Every Cinderella has Her "Midnight"

Midnight, directed by Mitchell Leisen, with a script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, and released by Paramount Pictures, is one of the great movies of 1939. It stars Claudette Colbert as a down-on-her-luck American showgirl in Paris and Don Ameche as a Hungarian cabdriver. Colbert offers to pay Ameche double his fare if he agrees to drive her around looking for work as a blues singer. After making the rounds of dozens of Paris nightspots, Colbert gives up and decides to go back to the train station to spend the night.

A smitten Ameche buys her dinner and offers her his apartment to rest in while he drives his cab all night. Although tempted, Colbert doesn't take Ameche up on his offer. Dressed in a glamorous evening gown (the only clothes she has, of course), Colbert escapes into the night. While walking by a Parisian mansion, Colbert is mistaken for a party guest and gains entrance to a society event using a pawn ticket as her invitation. The scam works and Colbert successfully mixes with the upper classes. To keep her scam going, Colbert impersonates a Hungarian countess, aided and abetted by the aristocratic John Barrymore.

Barrymore's wife, Mary Astor, thinks she's in love with playboy and champagne heir Francis Lederer. To help win his wife back, Barrymore enlist the help of the "countess." The plan is for Colbert to get Lederer to fall in love with her, keeping him out of Astor's arms.

The action really heats up at Barrymore and Astor's country mansion. Will Colbert's cover as a countess be exposed by a jealous Ameche? Will Barrymore be able to reconcile with Astor? The answers to all these questions explodes during one of the strangest breakfast meals in film history. The pace picks up  and the stories and aliases that Colbert and Barrymore cook up become wilder and more complicated...and more and more hilarious.

At this stage in his career, Barrymore refused to memorize scripts, so he read his lines from cue cards. It's impossible to tell that he's reading his lines and he steals every scene he's in. Colbert is in top form, her comic timing impeccable. Ameche, no slouch in the comedy department, holds his own as the lovesick cabbie. Astor and Lederer are also perfect in their respective roles.

Midnight is one of Leisen's best directorial efforts. The complicated mistaken identities, double entendres are classic Wilder. A screwball comedy with elegance and charm, Midnight deserves its place as one of the great films of 1939.