"Lady by Choice" Review

 

by Daniel White

Carole Lombard had been kicking around Hollywood for over ten years before she finally achieved genuine stardom in Howard Hawks' Twentieth Century (1934). Like her fellow sisters in mayhem and mirth, Jean Arthur and Myrna Loy, it took sound and screwball comedy to make her sizzle. And nobody sparked and crackled on screen quite like Jane Alice Peters from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

1934's Lady by Choice came out five months after Twentieth Century, and while it's not as well known as the classic Hawks film, it is still very good. With a solid screenplay by Jo Swerling and a cracker jack supporting cast that includes the great May Robson, Lady by Choice is chock full of laughs, with a sprinkling of sentimentality that goes down smooth.

Lombard plays Alabam' Lee, the "Human Heatwave", a fan dancer who keeps running into trouble with the law. To soften her image, her press agent (the wonderful Raymond Walburn) concocts a scheme for the hoofer to adopt an old lady on Mother's Day, the irrepressible Robson. May Robson is brilliant as Patsy Patterson, a gin guzzling battle-axe. She manages to steal just about every scene that isn't nailed down shut. It's similar to her role as Apple Annie in Frank Capra's Lady For A Day (1933). Maybe that's why Lady by Choice has been neglected. Compared to Capra and Hawks' movies it falls short, but I think it's a comic gem and deserves to be treated as such.

Lombard is unique, a free spirited, uninhibited actress who is equal parts glamour and grit. Of all the women who rose to prominence playing in screwball comedy flicks, she's my absolute favorite.

With the always suberb Walter Connolly as the gruff yet warm-hearted Judge Daly, Arthur Hohl as Lombard's shady manager, and the bland Roger Pryor as the love interest (where is William Powell when you need him), Lady by Choice is available on YouTube.