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You know, screwball comedy can be hard to make work. It requires a delicate touch in pacing and finding a balance between the grounded hero and the insane characters orbiting around them. An incomprehensible plot, or one that is filled with improbabilities isn’t really an issue since that seems pretty average for the territory. That a film could star so many stars and still not wind up a classic is a shame, but don’t blame Libeled Lady’s lackluster performance on any of them.
Instead, think of Lady as a definition of direction being key to making screwball comedy work. Gregory La Cava, Preston Sturges, George Cukor, Howard Hawks and Frank Capra all made perfect screwball comedies and are the kind of directors who could find the balance between keeping the comedy grounded and allowing the zany and strange parts to shine, but Jack Conway plays the entire film at the same pitch. Libeled Lady needed to slow down occasionally and not just speed through every scene, it doesn’t leave much room for the laughs to come out.
But this is a film which highlights star power making anything watchable. William Powell and Myrna Loy are a great team no matter what vehicle, combining a unique chemistry with sophisticated wits and sassy one-liners with delicate ease. Spencer Tracy on paper looks like an odd choice, but delivers a good enough performance, yet everyone is out-shined by Jean Harlow. Harlow played brassy, fast-talking dames with relish and here she works that tough-girl magic to great charm and manages to hit all of her laughs, even making some of the more outlandish plot twists believable thanks to her commitment and chemistry with Powell. One almost wishes that Powell and Harlow had ended up together, or maybe that Loy and Harlow had given the boys a verbal beat down and walked off arm-in-arm in a display of strength and sisterhood. But that may have been too much of a pipe dream for MGM’s patented glamorous posturing.
