La peur du scandale

Only because CAROLE LOMBARD and FERNAND GRAVET (he played Johann Strauss in "The Great Waltz") are shown enjoying themselves during a blooper moment on the dinner set of FOOLS FOR SCANDAL (in The Big Breakdowns of '38), did I want to see this romantic comedy. Turns out not to be quite the lark I expected, even though it has the usual Warner contract players in the supporting cast, including RALPH BELLAMY, ALLEN JENKINS, ISABEL JEANS and MARIE Wilson.

In the blooper, Carole had trouble digging into her steak which triggered an outburst from her and giggles from the other players. It was so amusing that I wanted to see the actual scene in the movie.

Unfortunately, FOOLS FOR SCANDAL is the screwiest kind of screwball comedy. None of the characters are the least bit grounded in any kind of reality, strictly cut-outs with dull one-liners as they confront one silly situation after another. The plot is something about a screen actress (Lombard) being stalked by a charming Frenchman whom she eventually hires as a cook. All of her female friends are crazy about him--and she's just, well--crazy. CAROLE LOMBARD plays her role at a fever pitch of fast talking nonsense and FERNAND GRAVET joins the mad pace with good humored sportsmanship. RALPH BELLAMY has his usual third wheel role of a man earnestly in love with Carole but obviously not headed for the altar at the final reel. He plays his role like an eager puppy wanting to please, but the results are still rather meager.

Summing up: Contrived screwball comedy is enjoyable only for the performances of the three leads, but the situations are unbelievable and overacted in the sledgehammer style of acting prevalent in Warner comedies of the '30s.

and it was largely because of the Lombard/Gable ''scandal''. Their affair had become very public by 1938 and was probably not greeted with open arms by the American filmgoing audience at the time, considering that Gable was already ''respectably'' married. Lombard did not then endear herself to her public and why should she have? Gable was the idol of millions of women and Lombard was an unwelcome bubble burster. Look at the box office performance of this and her subsequent films, they were virtually all flops until her fortunes began to revive, slightly, with Mr and Mrs Smith. By this time the burning jealousy of those millions of women had softened somewhat. It's kind of fascinating. Fools For Scandal was an expensive and derisive echo of My Man Godfrey, and nowhere near as good. But it was by no means the worst film of the year. A misfire, no doubt. But one with a certain amount of cache. One thing's for sure, it did not result in any kind of a contract for Lombard at Warner Brothers, under the helm of the miserly Jack Warner.

The only thing I can't figure out is why Carole Lombard playing a movie star very much like Carole Lombard in Fools For Scandal is why she was going out with a drip like Ralph Bellamy in the first place? Can someone answer that question? I can't imagine her ever coming in contact with him except to buy insurance.

Fools For Scandal has Lombard over in Paris where she meets a penniless count played by Fernand Gravey who gets by on wit, charm and little else. He encounters Lombard and manages to charm his way into her household and he turns out to be a pretty good cook. The man has a way with Crepe Suzettes.

Of course this continental charmer is good also at getting Ralph Bellamy's goat. But that's the whole idea. Bellamy gets more than a few laughs with his exasperation.

Fools For Scandal is not one of Lombard's really great films, but it certainly will satisfy her legion of fans. There's also nice parts for Marie Wilson as Lombard's maid as her usual vacuous self and Allen Jenkins who is Gravey's American friend from Brooklyn.

Now how did those two get together?

Carole Lombard plays a famous American actress staying in Paris; she encounters handsome but broke Fernand Gravet, who spends the first part of the film trying to rescue various items from the pawn shop, and then ends up as Lombard's chef—whether she wants him or not. It's all mildly amusing.

Allen Jenkins does his best as Gravet's sidekick but is hampered by lack of strong dialog. Isabel Jeans gives a deliciously gossipy performance as "Lady Malverton," a pillar of society who knows a good scandal when she smells one.

Ralph Bellamy is good as always, playing his usual chump in love with easily-distracted Lombard. One of the picture's few highlights is when Bellamy tries to tell a joke about a man ordering a steak—it's a really crummy joke made worse by Bellamy's chuckling as he tells it. (That this is a highlight unfortunately says a lot about the rest of the picture.)

The story is okay, the production slick, the dialog decent….but it's all just a little slow, or flat, or too predictable. Lombard is beautiful and frenetic as always—but there's just not much to her character, and certainly nothing memorable or unique from her other similar roles. And Fernand Gravet? Whether he was miscast or mismatched, I don't know—but he's just not very appealing.

Overall, a nice try but pretty forgettable. Too bad.

Fernand Gravey is a Marquis in Paris, but he has no money. He runs into movie star Carole Lombard and follows her back to London. What with one thing and another, he and pals Allen Jenkins and Marie Wilson wind up as servants in her household, much to the discomfiture of Miss Lombard's would-be fiance, Ralph Bellamy and the gossipy delight of all London.

There are problems with the production, chief among them the discarding of most of a Richard Rogers-Lorenz Hart set of songs and the rushing of the ending. Yet there are some perfect comedy set pieces, particularly the scene in which Gravey, Jenkins and Miss Wilson serve dinner to Bellamy and Miss Lombard.

It was the last movie that Mervyn Leroy directed at Warner Brothers before he jumped to MGM. He had entered Hollywood as a relative of Jesse Lasky. After a series of back lot jobs, he directed his first movie in 1928 and was off and running. He died in 1987, aged 86.