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Saturday, April 14, 2018

DESIGN FOR SCANDAL (1941)

Aiming for a smart, sophisticated, ‘40s B’way tone, Lionel Houser’s original comedy script for mid-list M-G-M stars Rosalind Russell & Walter Pidgeon gets about halfway there. Or does if you can deal with the surprisingly distasteful gameplan: Blowhard publishing tycoon Edward Arnold schemes to reduce his alimony on a golddigging wife by having top trouble-making reporter Pidgeon romance Judge Russell so a phony fiancée can blackmail her on a charge of alienation of affections. (Ugh.) But then he falls for her. Yet it's so nicely underplayed (well, by all except Arnold who blusters away), with ultra-pro helmer Norman Taurog refusing to oversell the modest laughs. Same goes for Franz Waxman’s score which avoids the usual yuck/yuck/wah/wah Mickey Mouse excesses of the day that turned studio orchestras into quasi-laugh tracks. Plus a really funny, neatly worked out courtroom finale with all parties on hand and a particularly sharp outing from a sly Guy Kibbee as a no-nonsense judge. He’s worth the whole show. Too bad the pot doesn’t come to the bubble sooner.

DOUBLE-BILL: Made between two of Roz Russell’s best known comedies: HIS GIRL FRIDAY/’40 and MY SISTER EILEEN/’42, the latter much improved for her on B’way as the Bernstein, Comden & Green musical WONDERFUL TOWN. And Pidgeon?, he's right between two Oscar’d Best Pics: HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY/’41 and MRS. MINIVER/’42.

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