Fools for Scandal (1938)

Interesting facts

Fools for Scandal is a 1938 screwball comedy film starring Carole Lombard and Fernand Gravet, featuring Ralph Bellamy, Allen Jenkins, Isabel Jeans, Marie Wilson and Marcia Ralston, and produced and directed by Mervyn LeRoy. It was written by Herbert Fields and Joseph Fields with additional dialogue by Irving Brecher, and uncredited contributions by others based on the unproduced 1936 play Return Engagement by Nancy Hamilton, James Shute and Rosemary Casey. The songs are by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.

Production

The working title of the film, which was planned to be filmed in Technicolor, was "Food for Scandal"; both titles were inspired by Sheridan's play The School for Scandal. The day of its release, April 16, 1938, Sheridan's play was feature on NBC Blue's program Great Plays.

This was Lombard's only film for Warner Bros. Pictures, and Mervyn LeRoy's last; he then went to MGM.

Fernand Gravet came to Warners after having achieved considerable success in French films under the name Fernand Gravey, but the failure of Fools for Scandal prevented him from achieving star status in the United States. He made one other film in the U.S., The Great Waltz for MGM, then returned to France.

Warners borrowed Ted Tetzlaff, Lombard's favorite cinematographer, from Paramount Pictures for the film, so that Lombard would be comfortable with how she was shot. She later said that she knew Fools for Scandal was a flop "when my friends confined their comments to how beautifully I had been photographed". Unfortunately, she never worked with Tetzlaff again.

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