Libeled Lady (1936) review — William Powell falling in a river is pure gold

If you like fast-talking people who wear fancy hats and lie for a living, you need to watch this immediately. If you hate old black-and-white movies where everyone talks like they have a train to catch, maybe skip it.

But honestly, even if you are tired of old Hollywood stuff, this one might win you over. It is just so incredibly chaotic. 😅

The Setup is Absolutely Bonkers

So, a newspaper editor gets sued for 5 million bucks by a rich lady he falsely claimed was a homewrecker. To fix this, he gets his own fiancée to temporarily marry his friend, so the friend can seduce the rich lady and make the fake story actually true.

Yes, it's that kind of messy. Nobody in this movie has any ethics, and that is exactly why it is so much fun to watch.The cast is like a fantasy football team of 1930s actors. You got Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy, William Powell, and Jean Harlow all yelling at each other at the same time.

Jean Harlow’s character is constantly getting stood up at the altar by Tracy. She wears this ridiculous wedding dress in the first ten minutes and looks ready to absolutely murder someone with her bare hands. 👰‍♀️

That One Fishing Scene

William Powell is just so incredibly smooth, but the movie is at its best when it completely humiliates him. There is this long scene where he has to pretend to be an expert fisherman to impress Myrna Loy’s father.

He has absolutely no clue what he is doing. He gets dragged around by a giant fish, gets his boots filled with water, and ends up floating down the river like a sad wet log.

It is beautiful physical comedy. It reminds me a bit of the silent physical comedy in Almost Human, though with way more splashing and screaming.

"A gentleman never tells the truth when a lie is more polite."

Spencer Tracy plays the editor like a guy who drinks twelve cups of coffee a day. He’s always sweating, yelling into a telephone, and running his hands through his messy hair.

The plot makes zero sense if you think about it for more than three seconds. Why would anyone agree to this weird fake-marriage scheme? It seems like a lot of paperwork and legal risk just to avoid a lawsuit.

But you don't care because the dialogue moves at ninety miles an hour. It is much sharper and meaner than the stuff you see in One Romantic Night, which feels almost sleepy by comparison.

Some Weird Little Things I Noticed

• Spencer Tracy keeps tossing his hat onto his desk, and he never misses once. I wonder how many takes that took.
• The newspaper office is so loud and crowded. You can practically smell the ink and the stale cigar smoke.
• Myrna Loy has this incredible side-eye. She knows Powell is lying to her, but she’s just waiting to see how far he will go.
• Harlow’s voice can pierce metal when she gets mad. It is amazing.

There is a weird moment near the end where Harlow's character suddenly changes her mind about everything. It feels a bit rushed, like the writers realized they only had five minutes of film left in the camera.

But who cares? The journey is a blast.

If you need something to put a smile on your face on a rainy Sunday, this is the one. Just don't try to explain the plot to anyone else afterward, because you will sound completely insane.