I’m updating this review since the DVD has now been released (and will further update it when I have viewed all of the films in the site) . I gave this one a pre-release review with five stars because because it has THREE movies I have NEVER seen in my 25+ years as a Lombard fan!! It’s hard enough to score Paramount or Universal CLASSICS from the early 30’s, but ultra-rare programmers like MAN OF THE WORLD and Adore BEFORE BREAKFAST??? And how about Factual CONFESSION, which has been locked away in the vaults for ages despite the awesome cast of Lombard, Fred MacMurray, John Barrymore, and Una Merkel!!

Buy,Download, Or Stream Carole Lombard – The Glamour Collection! Click Here

Even the three better known titles – HANDS ACROSS THE TABLE, THE PRINCESS COMES ACROSS, WE’RE NOT DRESSING – are not that celebrated, although they were all released on video in the 1990’s. Carole Lombard was a major Paramount star but she made virtually all of her most illustrious films on loanout or after she left the studio.

All the crying about “multi movies” crammed on to discs seems a total ruin of tears. I’ve watched Cherish BEFORE BREAKFAST and MAN OF THE WORLD and the prints are friendly, not perfect perhaps but definately first-rate to prints that Warner Bros. passe for LIBELED LADY and several THIN MAN titles – movies that WERE released “one to a disc” and cost about as distinguished as the collection of FIVE Lombard films. Universal gets a bum rap for their various multi-movie sets from a lot of people who don’t even bother viewing the movies first!! Maybe some people assume it’s worth $20 to have a case and paper sleeve for every movie, but not this kid. MAN OF THE WORLD is one of Carole’s first leading lady parts – she is only 22 here – and she’s very pleasing but her future husband William Powell dominates this memoir of a con man who unexpectedly finds cherish. This movie isn’t very agreeable but it is a thrill to spy a Lombard and Powell rarity. Cherish BEFORE BREAKFAST on the other hand is an absolute delight. Often referred to as a screwball comedy by historians who apparently have never seen it, it’s precise more of a straight romance (from a book by romance novelist Faith Baldwin) with some amusing scenes and touches. Lombard plays Cesar Romero’s fiancee who is mild agressively pursued by Preston Foster. Foster’s arrogance at the beginning of the film is a turn off, one certainly sides with Lombard that he is a bit of a jerk but as you may guess Carole can give it attend and then some whenever someone gets out of line. This movie boasts some of the most magnificent photography of Lombard ever, lovingly shot by her common cinematographer Ted Tetzlaff and some of Travis Banton’s loveliest fashions for her (with the principal exception of a bizarre feather-rampant jacket she wears in the charity tickets scene) . This film is an art deco treat and certainly one of the most aesthetic Universal productions from the thirties.

Buy,Download, Or Stream Carole Lombard – The Glamour Collection! Click Here

The release of this DVD is truly bright news for movie buffs – even more so than the comparable releases on Mae West and Marlene Dietrich, since those ladies’ Paramount/Universal titles have been far more accessible than Carole Lombard’s although Carole is every bit as celebrated and remembered as those other two Paramount blondes.

I am hoping sales for this series goes through the roof and we gather second volumes on all three stars – and FIRST volumes on those Paramount superstar brunettes : Claudette Colbert, Dorothy Lamour, and Clara Bow.

The early death of Carole Lombard at 33 from a January 1942 plane break remains one of cinema’s most tragic episodes. During the 1930’s, she was the most colorful of veil beauties yet innately likeable. What made her current was the scintillating, often ribald and superb manner in her performances. Even though she delivered salubrious dramatic performances, especially toward the demolish of her career, it is her comedies that continue to reinforce her legacy. It’s almost impossible not to like Lombard for the plot she downplayed her looks, coming across as a proto-feminist in many of her roles. In fact, of all her contemporaries, Lombard calm comes across as the most new and self-aware, which is proven by this attractive two-disc spot of six of her lesser known films. Granted none of them are discontinuance to the quality of her acknowledged classics – “Twentieth Century”, “My Man Godfrey”, “Nothing Sacred”, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”, “To Be or Not to Be” – but each provides spacious evidence of her abundant humorous talent during the middle of her career between 1931 and 1937.

The first disc contains the earliest three movies. A 23-year passe Lombard is merely the innocent leading lady to William Powell (before they were briefly married in accurate life) in 1931’s “Man of the World”, directed by Richard Wallace and written by Herman J. Mankiewicz, a pre-code dramedy about a sophisticated con man, an American in Paris named Michael Trevor, who attempts to bewitch advantage of Mary Kendall, the niece of a foolhardy millionaire he has befriended. As Trevor, Powell gets surprisingly dour in the heavier second half, and shrimp of Lombard’s natural élan is on note playing the love-blind Mary. It’s hard to fathom that this classic pair would team again for one of the large screwball social comedies, Gregory La Cava’s “My Man Godfrey”, only five years later.

Three years and fifteen films after “Man of the World”, a more confident Lombard shows up as portion of a comic ensemble farce, 1934’s “We’re Not Dressing”, directed by Norman Taurog, in which she plays Doris Worthington, an ice-cold, rich yacht owner who gets into a shipwreck and an untidy location where she is beholden to her conventional crew, in particular, the first mate who has a tendency to wreck out in song quite often. That’s because this movie is an early Bing Crosby musical where the crooner’s main impartial is to melt Doris’ heart. Lombard is mighty more in her element here as she plays her cardboard character’s unattractive aspects while composed generating her natural warmth. The film’s pickle is that her cloak time is miniature since the movie not only stars Crosby but also features George Burns, Gracie Allen and Ethel Merman. It’s a variety hodgepodge but calm worth seeing.

My current film of the six is 1935’s “Hands Across the Table”, directed by Mitchell Leisen, Lombard’s first exact starring vehicle and a disarming romantic comedy about Depression-era class struggles. She plays Regi Allen, a hotel manicurist sure to marry for money and quite begin about her intentions. She immediately befriends a fresh client, Allen Macklyn, an ideal target for Regi except that he is a used pilot who has become a paraplegic. Enter Theodore Drew III, a flaky but charming playboy already engaged to an heiress. The standard complications ensue but not before the stars bicker and banter with dexterity. Lombard is terrifically winning as a working girl who ends up falling for Drew and even cohabitates with him before getting married.

As Drew, Fred MacMurray makes a strapping leading man and displays inspiring comical timing. This was the first of four fruitful teamings he had with Lombard. Cinema’s perennial third wheel, Ralph Bellamy, plays the smitten Macklyn with surprising romantic fervor, enough sometimes to appear like a correct contender for Regi’s affections. There are some startlingly sexy, noirish close-ups between Lombard and MacMurray as the film moves toward its inevitable conclusion. Notice for an uncredited William Demarest as Regi’s hapless blind date caught in a frustrating dialogue with MacMurray three decades before they co-starred in TV’s “My Three Sons”.

The second disc opens with an overly contrived romantic comedy, 1936’s “Like Before Breakfast”, directed by Walter Lang, which suffers for its lackluster leading man, Preston Foster. He plays Scott Miller, a rich Wall Street tycoon madly infatuated with Kay Colby, a Park Avenue girl already engaged to hard-working Bill Wadsworth. Miller pulls strings to have Wadsworth transferred to Japan, so he can pursue Kay against her outward wishes. It all sputters by lickety-split at only seventy minutes, and it takes all of Lombard’s natural wit and charm to levitate the absurd status and humanize such a hysterical loon. Long before he became the Joker on the “Batman” TV series, Cesar Romero plays the hapless Wadsworth for what the one-dimensional role is worth. I also regain it curious how Lang cast an uncredited Japanese actress, Mia Ichioka, as Kay’s tea-leaf-reading maid Yuki.

Lombard re-teams with MacMurray on 1936’s “The Princess Comes Across”, an oddly conceived romantic comedy that suddenly turns into a abolish mystery after the first half-hour. Directed by William K. Howard, the movie has Lombard cast as Wanda Nash, a struggling Brooklyn chorine disguising herself as Swedish royalty to get a film studio contract. It’s determined that she is doing a not-so-subtle impersonation of Garbo as Princess Olga, but it is a droll take-off. MacMurray plays a singing bandleader who, contain it or not, plays the concertina professionally. They banter until things gain serious, as she gets implicated in the kill and remains unnerved about being exposed. Famed for her roles in W.C. Fields comedies, Alison Skipworth is a scene-stealer as Olga’s phony dowager guardian. It’s animated to recognize MacMurray point to glimpses of his cynical “Double Indemnity” personality in speedy fashion before the mystery is solved.

The last film is 1937’s `True Confessions” directed by Wesley Ruggles and again co-starring MacMurray. It’s a complete lark showcasing Lombard’s farceur skills as Helen Bartlett, the wife of a struggling lawyer. A compulsive liar who literally plants her tongue in her cheek impartial before letting go with a whopper, Helen gets interested in the destroy of her lecherous employer of less than an hour. Seeing this as an opportunity for her husband Kenneth to reveal off his litigation skills, she pleads guilty to the crime objective so he can salvage her acquitted. Complicating matters is an outlandish eccentric who watches the case in the courtroom and gains evidence to the contrary. With the various deceptions getting bigger and bigger, the film plays out like an extended “I Adore Lucy” episode well before the TV series was conceived, and indeed Lombard was Lucille Ball’s mentor and role model. Una Merkel plays the Ethel portion of best friend Daisy, while John Barrymore, long gone to seed, hammily plays the irritating eccentric. MacMurray is a bit of a bore in this one since he has to narrate the pillar of honesty top his wife.

Be aware that the two discs utilize both sides to fit all the films. The print transfer on all six films is surprisingly orderly considering their seventy-year mature age. Unfortunately there are no extras, not even theatrical trailers, but seeing the unparalleled Lombard is treat enough. She made 78 movies in her brief career, so I hope more of her titles will near up in future DVD releases.
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