LIBELED LADY (1936)

"She may be his wife, but she's engaged to me!"

Spencer Tracy is a stressed out newspaper man engaged to be married to hot-headed Jean Harlow. On the morning of their latest wedding day (the marriage keeps getting postponed due to newspaper crises), the newspaper prints a false story about the wealthy Myrna Loy having an affair with a married man. She threatens to sue the paper for $5m, so in an act of desperation the newspaper hires suave ladies man William Powell to secretly marry Jean Harlow and then seduce Myrna Loy so the newspaper can catch her in Powell's arms and have the case dropped.  That all sounds good in theory, but Fate throws a monkey wrench in the works by having Powell fall in love with Loy while at the same time Harlow falls in love with Powell!

The idea for the movie is brilliant, but when you throw in not one, not two, not three but four of the greatest stars of silver screen plus the amazing Walter Connolly as Loy's protective father...then you have yourself a surefire screwball classic!  Quick pace that never slows down, wonderful chemistry between the leads, funny lines, hilarious physical comedy, Loy and Harlow are both beautiful.  I've revisited this film many times over the years and I still laugh each time.  William Powell is especially great. His yodel when he walks into to Loy's mansion is hysterical.

Five years later, in 1941, Jack Conway directed another Loy/Powell classic LOVE CRAZY which is almost as funny as LIBELED LADY. Both are highly recommended.

THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS (1946)

A wealthy piano player lives in a remote Italian village with a bunch of servants and hangers-on circling around him day and night.  He seems to be in love with his new nurse, but she has the hots for his best friend.  Things happen slowly until finally the piano player dies in an accident.  His relatives object to the will leaving his vast estate to the nurse. Soon after, strange things start to happen like the piano playing in the middle of the night, the dead body's left hand getting cut off and his turncoat lawyer being strangled to death.  Could it be that the dead body's hand has came back from the dead and is attacking anybody who contests his will?!  Not likely.

THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS goes nowhere.  The story takes too long to get moving and once it does you're like "That's it?"  And that ending!  The final act drags on and on for until you're begging the movie to end and once it finally does...there's a joke ending!!!  It's like the filmmakers had zero faith in their product so they just slapped on a goofy ending as an apology or something.  I don't know. 

I like Peter Lorre and I had hopes that TBWFF was going to be like 1935's MADLOVE, but nah it was boring through and through.  I've seen commercials with a more compelling story.  Skip it.