Carole Lombard’s Divine Lunacy

Carole Lombard’s Divine Lunacy

Blond, beautiful, and often nutty as a fruitcake, Carole Lombard in her all too brief career was utterly distinctive and hard to pin down. She’s a glamorpuss who can play a small-town librarian (just barely) or a manicurist; a diva who can hammer away at a typewriter as a romance novelist; a tomboy who shimmers in low-cut Irene gowns. It’s partly because of these seeming contradictions that she found her home in screwball comedies, particularly those that simply gave up and surrendered to her head-spinning momentum, her rapid-fire swerves into the histrionic absurd.

We movie lovers often play the what-if game. Take any favorite film and wonder what if X had played the lead instead of Y. Such an occasion arose in the Q and A following a screening of His Girl Friday in Sag Harbor a couple of years ago. I mentioned that Hawks had initially wanted Jean Arthur for the Hildy part, whereupon members of the audience raised their own ideas about hypothetical Hildys, one being Carole Lombard. Oh, no, I quickly said. It had to be Rosalind Russell. No one else has the combination of smarts, ambition, swagger, and nerdiness, along with looks that are extremely attractive without being drop-dead dazzling. 

My Man Godfrey
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Hands Across the Table

You have no items in your shopping cart