Design for Scandal

I'm sure William Powell was not available so in the MGM pecking order Walter Pidgeon got to star with Rosalind Russell in what turned out to be her last MGM film Design For Scandal. Pidgeon's part seemed to be cloned from Bill Powell's role as the reporter in Libeled Lady.

Pidgeon is a reporter who works for Edward Arnold a rich publisher who hates to part with a nickel. Arnold just got taken to the cleaners in a divorce settlement from gold digging Mary Beth Hughes and he's mad as hell at Judge Rosalind Russell for really socking it to him.

There's some really dirty pool played here as Pidgeon romances Russell so that Jean Rogers playing his girlfriend can sue her in a trumped up alienation of affections suit. What happens here is what happens in all movies of this type. You can truly figure out what's going on here.

The leads are fine, but Edward Arnold really steals this film as the 'mastermind' behind this scheme. His reactions every time another bill is brought to him are priceless.

Rosalind Russell plays another one of those patented career woman roles she did so well. Her fans who like to see her in these parts will be pleased.

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.

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.

(There may be Spoilers) Zany and sophisticated 1941 screwball comedy that has big city newspaper mogul J.M "Cuddle Baby" Bair, Edward Arnold, enlisting his former ace reporter "Smilin Jeff" Sherman, Walter Pigeon, to do a job for him. "Cuddle Baby" wants Jeff to get the goods on the Judge who just threw the book on him giving his gold digging 22 year former party girl wife Adele, Mary Beth Bowman, a $250,000.00 settlement in his divorce suite.

J.M feeling like a fool to be taken to the cleaners by Judge Cornelia Porter, Rosalind Russell, tries to get her transfered out of her job presiding over family matters in divorce court, so his appeal against her decision would be handled by a judge that he can buy off. J.M then find out that she's just been elected to a six year term and has an impeccable record as a jurist. Jeff comes up with this scheme to get Judge Porter involved in a love triangle with him being the effected party who's affections are stolen from his future wife Dotty, Jean Rogers, by the Family Courts straight as a arrow Judge Cornelia Porter.

working all the angles Jeff finds out that the Judge is an armature sculpture and artist. Finding she's going to the Cape Cod artist colony to spend the summer Jeff get's a local sculpture from there Alexander Roaul, Leon Belasco, a job back in NYC to paint the JM Blair Building as Jeff moves into his studio and in on Judge Porter trying to impress her with his, really Raouls, art works.

Jeff at first trying to entrap Judge Porter by romancing her starts to fall in love with the judge. Soon he scuttles his plans that he concocted with both Dotty and his boss J.M Blair. J.M is outraged with Jeff for leaving him out in the cold and having his "fiancé" and "future wife" Dotty stick "Cuddle Baby" Blair with a $5,000.00 tab, plus all the furs and jewelry she could buy with his checkbook, to go along with Jeff's insane scheme.

With the case now going to court Blair knows that he'll lose, again, in the courts when the "other woman" in Jeff's life Judge Porter takes the stand. Jeff instead of accusing her of destroying his "marraige", that's still some two months away, with Dotty admits that he's in love with Judge Porter and thus has the entire case against her thrown out with now "Cuddle Baby" Blair, as well as Jeff, facing time behind bars for trying to frame the good and incorruptible Judge Porter.

While all this is going on Blair came to an agreement with his former wife Adele to drop her divorce settlement against him for a lump sum of $150,000.00 saving him almost $100,000.00 in divorce payments. Later Blair find out to his shock and surprise that she was to marry a rich old oil geezer, John D. Rockerfeller Jr?, the next day after she already cashed his check! If Blair waited one more day his divorce payments would have been immediately halted since she was to be married and wouldn't be entitled to them!

Judge Porter, or Cornelia, finally realizes that she's in love with the buffoonish but handsome Jeff Sherman forgets all his zany antics and tricks that he played on her by now knowing that his heart not his brain was in the right place but not always at the right time.