Cuando Eva flaquea

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.

ROSALIND RUSSELL plays another one of her working woman roles as a divorce court judge playing a tricky game of wits with her male sparring partner WALTER PIDGEON.

He's a newspaper man who makes a deal with EDWARD ARNOLD to get the female judge (Russell) off her high pedestal so that she loses her job and he can save his grateful boss from having to pay high alimony. It's strictly cornball comedy/romance with neither star having material worthy of their star status.

It's second rate as romantic comedy and nothing--not even the competent supporting cast--can do much to raise it above the ordinary level. The script is a virtual hodge-podge of clichés, the sort of film Russell found herself typecast in year after year during the '40s.

LEE BOWMAN has another one of his thankless second string roles, MARY BETH HUGHES pouts prettily and JEAN ROGERS is merely decorative as a scheming femme fatale.

It's all pretty artificial but it passes the time on a dull afternoon.

Walter Pidgeon is a reporter who agrees to do some dirty work for his boss in "Design for Scandal," also starring Rosalind Russell and Edward Arnold.

After Arnold takes a beating in his divorce case, presided over by Russell, Pidgeon offers to help him out in return for getting his job back (when he thought he was going to die, he told off the boss - always a mistake).

His assignment is to devise a scandal involving the judge so that his boss can have her removed from the bench. Pigeon follows the lady on her vacation and makes his play, enlisting the help of his girlfriend to build an alienation of affections case.

This is a very mild comedy, highly predictable, and this type of role wasn't Pidgeon's forte. He's quite handsome in the role, but the part called for someone like Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable - an attractive, fast-talking rogue.

Russell, like Celeste Holm and sometimes Katharine Hepburn, played these strong career women since her beauty was not conventional. She's very good, but the theme is always the same, isn't it - a successful career is fine but you're deluding yourself.

What you really want to do is take off those tailored suits and get a man - because being a smart and successful woman will never win you anything important.

It all gets a little tired, but it does give me some insight into why my mother turned out the way she did.

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.

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.