LIBELED LADY was a winner in 1936, the 13th most-seen release that year, and snagged an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Elbowing into the burgeoning screwball comedy arena prepped by It Happened One Night and Twentieth Century, this one meshed four popular stars in 98 minutes directed apace by Jack Conway.

Newspaper editor ‘Warren Haggerty’ (Spencer Tracy) is in a jam. His paper is being sued by rich girl ‘Connie Allenbury’ (Myrna Loy) who seeks five million bucks from Haggerty’s rag for smearing her, printing that she knowingly broke up a marriage. Haggerty entreats suave ex-reporter ‘Bill Chandler’ (William Powell) to stealth instigate a romance with Connie and then catch her in the act when his ‘wife’ shows up. The spouse (who really isn’t) is actually Warren’s fed-up fiancée Gladys Benton (Jean Harlow), who grudgingly goes along with the deception. Naturally (per screwball logic) real feelings play out and the right people end up with the best partner.

Concocted by Maureen Dallas Watkins (Roxie Hart), Howard Emmett Rogers (The Adventures Of Tartu) and George Oppenheimer (A Day At The Races), the script is convoluted nonsense made better than it is by the powerhouse star quartet. Conway had just delivered a string of hits (Tarzan And His Mate, Viva Villa!, A Tale Of Two Cities) but he rushes things too fast in the first third and Tracy’s character is too abrasive. At 35, 1936 was a breakout year for Tracy, who was with Harlow in the drama Riffraff, the innocent target of mob vengeance in Fury and standing for decency in San Francisco, getting his first Oscar nomination for that earthquake epic. First-billed Harlow, 25, scores in both the wisecrack and pathos departments as the justifiably frustrated Gladys. Along with Riffraff she adorned two more pictures that year, Wife vs. Secretary (Loy in that as well), a comedy, and Suzy, a drama. There was personal drama going on during the making of Libeled Lady, as she and William Powell were a hot & heavy (if hidden) twosome. Besides attending to Jean, Powell, 43, had his plate full in 1936, with the well-loved My Man Godfrey, a blockbuster hit as The Great Ziegfeld and the fun After The Thin Man, (with Loy, who was also in The Great Ziegfeld). Loy, 30, was in a total of six pix that year (the others were Petticoat Fever, a comedy, and the drama To Mary–With Love) and was fine in all, but showed to her best advantage with Powell, playfully dueling in this film (the fishing segment is a highlight), and being drolly witty in their second Nick & Nora case.

 Libeled Lady cost MGM $603,000, and among the many smiles it generated was a sharky beam from Louis B. Mayer when it reeled in $5,300,000. With Walter Connolly, Charley Grapewin, Cora Witherspoon, George Chandler, Otto Yamaoka and Billy Benedict. Remade in 1946 as Easy To Wed, also a success, done as a musical-comedy with Esther Williams, Van Johnson, Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn.