Design for Scandal

Gold digger Mary Beth Hughes divorces Edward Arnold. Judge Rosalind Russell awards her an enormous alimony. Arnold wants a reconsideration, but it will have to go through Judge Russell, and Guy Kibbee refuses to transfer her to another division. So Arnold sets his fixer, Walter Pidgeon on her to stir up some scandal while she's on vacation on Cape Cod -- my, how 2024! -- by wooing her.

It's early in the series of movies in which Miss Russell would portray an authority figure who would fall for some scoundrel, so there's some freshness about it. Miss Russell would later describe these as

In all those types of films I wore a tan suit, a grey suit, a beige suit and then a negligee for the seventh reel near the end when I would admit to my best friend on the telephone that what I really wanted was to become a little housewife.

Lee Bowman plays the dull boyfriend who gets dumped in that seventh reel; Barbara Jo Allen (Vera Vague) and Thurston Hall also appear.

Delightful romantic comedy with a plot that is, basically, a rehash of "Libeled Lady" (1936), beautifully done with nice cast. Rosalind Russell appears as a judge — as she would again in "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" (1947) — but also as a career woman whose repressed femininity makes her easy game for unscrupulous ladies' man Walter Pidgeon. That particular feature adds interest to the interaction between both characters and even, in a way and to a certain extent, gives this unpretentious little comedy a sort of an edge on the aforementioned classic screwball comedy. The chemistry between the leading couple is perfect and both are great in their respective parts. Arnold is also effective in another of his roles as a ruthless businessman (here a newspaper editor), the kind of characterization he played to perfection in several Frank Capra's comedies. Famous 'Vera Vague' (Barbara Jo Allen) plays a bit part, and the character that made the actress's fame is credited under hers (between parentheses) in the main titles.

DESIGN FOR SCANDAL (1941) Walter Pidgeon, Rosalind Russell Lively Script. Pidgeon orchestrates a scandal to help his boss get even with a judge (Russell) for a ruling in a divorce case. Pidgeon, a fixer/reporter (more like an experienced con-man) is an amoral opportunist. Russell, the judge, is cold and emotionally walled-off from the world as Pidgeon tries to seduce and compromise her.

In my opinion Pidgeon deserved to be indicted despite how glib and affable he was.

Pidgeon's performance is adequate, he's likable as always. Russell is also adequate and beautiful. But I was distanced from immersion into the story by both of their slightly wooden line delivery. I kept getting the sense they were speaking lines, acting. The script was snappy, maybe that was the problem? Too snappy for ordinary people to be saying.

I think that's one of the problems with these movies from the 40's that have such great writing. It undermines the credibility of our character identification. Who speaks like that? Who is that smart, that quick? Yet it's the same thing we enjoy so much, the thing that makes such movies rise above the rest.

So, the answer is to have characters that the audience can believe are smart enough to be delivering such quick-witted comebacks.

Also, the deliveries from the two lead characters here sounded a bit overly rehearsed.

I liked this movie from the start and as it developed but drifted away emotionally during the last act.

Lots of wonderful supporting cast including the great (and aging) Edward Arnold, the ubiquitous Guy Kibbee, and Leon Belasco (playing a sculptor).

Judge Cornelia Porter (Rosalind Russell) orders wealthy publisher Judson M. Blair (Edward Arnold) to pay large alimony settlements to his ex-wife. Jeff Sherman (Walter Pidgeon) is a slick playboy reporter who worked for Blair. He has a scheme to compromise the judge and clear the way for a challenge the ruling.

Rosalind Russell is great for this role. I love her. The trick of this is for the audience to like Sherman despite his underhanded selfish ways. I like Walter Pidgeon fine enough, but there are better picks for this role. The character is much more borderline. I'm not sure if I like Sherman. The film is borderline.

'Design for Scandal' did sound quite interesting and had potential to be great. The story was a nice idea, giving the impression that the film would be enjoyable even if there was the possibility of it being not particularly plausible. Rosalind Russell and Walter Pidgeon, heading a talented cast, showed themselves to be great in other things and had a lot of appeal to them. Norman Taurog was not the most consistent or greatest of directors, but some of his work has not been bad at all.

My thoughts on 'Design for Scandal' when seeing it was that it was a decent and enjoyable film with a good deal to like about it. Albeit also a bit disappointing and not one of the best representations of particularly an against-type Pidgeon, with the big amount of potential it had it did have a lot of room to be much better than it turned out to be. It is definitely worth a viewing but it is not one of those watch it over and over films, more a film to see once or twice.

As said, there is a good deal to like. The production values are glossy but in a way that is nostalgic and quite sumptuous. Taurog directs at a brisk pace, everything moving along crisply with little signs of letting up.

The script deftly balances romance and comedy. There is some clever witty dialogue that is genuinely funny in a gentle way without being over-engineered, the interplay between Russell does sparkle at its best. The romance is frothy but also sweet and charming. Russell is in a role that suits her to the ground and she does fabulously at being icy and sophisticated with great comic timing. The supporting cast are solid generally, Edward Arnold being a standout.

Pidgeon however disappoints. It was great that he tried to do something different to his usual roles at this point, but he seemed ill at ease with the comic timing not coming naturally to him and the role would have benefitted from being handled with a much lighter touch, here played too heavily and seriously. The characters have little depth to them and are little more than stereotypes that don't always add very much, wouldn't have said no to Jean Rogers being given more to do.

Was also not all that taken with the long tangled string of cliches story, which did tend to be somewhat far-fetched to credibility-straining effect (even when taking the film for what it's meant to be and trying to not expect too much from) and not always focused, the cliches mounting all the time with so much here having been done before and much better. While the pace has a lot of energy the film loses steam towards the end in momentum and focus, and as an overall whole the film is quite ordinary. Pleasant enough but part of me wanted to connect with it much more and wanted it to do much more with its material, done competently more often than not but with not much imagination.

In conclusion, enjoyable if a bit underwhelming. With more imagination and a better male lead (others have mentioned Cary Grant and he definitely would have been a much better choice) it would have been a lot better than it turned out. Worth seeing though to see Russell in her last film she made when under her MGM contract, another interest point. 6/10