Design for Scandal (1941)

I love this movie so much

You won't be disappointed!

Too much of everything

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

DESIGN FOR SCANDAL (1941) Walter Pidgeon, Rosalind Russell Lively Script. Pidgeon orchestrates a scandal to help his boss get even with a judge (Russell) for a ruling in a divorce case. Pidgeon, a fixer/reporter (more like an experienced con-man) is an amoral opportunist. Russell, the judge, is cold and emotionally walled-off from the world as Pidgeon tries to seduce and compromise her.In my opinion Pidgeon deserved to be indicted despite how glib and affable he was.Pidgeon's performance is adequate, he's likable as always. Russell is also adequate and beautiful. But I was distanced from immersion into the story by both of their slightly wooden line delivery. I kept getting the sense they were speaking lines, acting. The script was snappy, maybe that was the problem? Too snappy for ordinary people to be saying.I think that's one of the problems with these movies from the 40's that have such great writing. It undermines the credibility of our character identification. Who speaks like that? Who is that smart, that quick? Yet it's the same thing we enjoy so much, the thing that makes such movies rise above the rest.So, the answer is to have characters that the audience can believe are smart enough to be delivering such quick-witted comebacks.Also, the deliveries from the two lead characters here sounded a bit overly rehearsed.I liked this movie from the start and as it developed but drifted away emotionally during the last act.Lots of wonderful supporting cast including the great (and aging) Edward Arnold, the ubiquitous Guy Kibbee, and Leon Belasco (playing a sculptor).

lee Bowman is sexy, Walter p is not... when RR begins to fall for him, how depressing it is! it's pathetic and sad and what about the other girl he's stringing along? I'm not sure if her loose ends were tied up cause I went to the kitchen to get mango which was a messy affair.I thought Rosalind was very funny and all the actors were, except WP was just so unappealing but perhaps that was deliberate as he might have been intolerable if he were appealing. . . anyway this movie has some of the most sexist sequences of any movie I've ever seen in my half century on the planet.I enjoyed the costumes though some of them were actually rather awful.the artist is adorable!

(There may be Spoilers) Zany and sophisticated 1941 screwball comedy that has big city newspaper mogul J.M "Cuddle Baby" Bair, Edward Arnold, enlisting his former ace reporter "Smilin Jeff" Sherman, Walter Pigeon, to do a job for him. "Cuddle Baby" wants Jeff to get the goods on the Judge who just threw the book on him giving his gold digging 22 year former party girl wife Adele, Mary Beth Bowman, a $250,000.00 settlement in his divorce suite.J.M feeling like a fool to be taken to the cleaners by Judge Cornelia Porter, Rosalind Russell, tries to get her transfered out of her job presiding over family matters in divorce court, so his appeal against her decision would be handled by a judge that he can buy off. J.M then find out that she's just been elected to a six year term and has an impeccable record as a jurist. Jeff comes up with this scheme to get Judge Porter involved in a love triangle with him being the effected party who's affections are stolen from his future wife Dotty, Jean Rogers, by the Family Courts straight as a arrow Judge Cornelia Porter.working all the angles Jeff finds out that the Judge is an armature sculpture and artist. Finding she's going to the Cape Cod artist colony to spend the summer Jeff get's a local sculpture from there Alexander Roaul, Leon Belasco, a job back in NYC to paint the JM Blair Building as Jeff moves into his studio and in on Judge Porter trying to impress her with his, really Raouls, art works.Jeff at first trying to entrap Judge Porter by romancing her starts to fall in love with the judge. Soon he scuttles his plans that he concocted with both Dotty and his boss J.M Blair. J.M is outraged with Jeff for leaving him out in the cold and having his "fiancé" and "future wife" Dotty stick "Cuddle Baby" Blair with a $5,000.00 tab, plus all the furs and jewelry she could buy with his checkbook, to go along with Jeff's insane scheme.With the case now going to court Blair knows that he'll lose, again, in the courts when the "other woman" in Jeff's life Judge Porter takes the stand. Jeff instead of accusing her of destroying his "marraige", that's still some two months away, with Dotty admits that he's in love with Judge Porter and thus has the entire case against her thrown out with now "Cuddle Baby" Blair, as well as Jeff, facing time behind bars for trying to frame the good and incorruptible Judge Porter.While all this is going on Blair came to an agreement with his former wife Adele to drop her divorce settlement against him for a lump sum of $150,000.00 saving him almost $100,000.00 in divorce payments. Later Blair find out to his shock and surprise that she was to marry a rich old oil geezer, John D. Rockerfeller Jr?, the next day after she already cashed his check! If Blair waited one more day his divorce payments would have been immediately halted since she was to be married and wouldn't be entitled to them!Judge Porter, or Cornelia, finally realizes that she's in love with the buffoonish but handsome Jeff Sherman forgets all his zany antics and tricks that he played on her by now knowing that his heart not his brain was in the right place but not always at the right time.

Walter Pidgeon distinguished himself in many films, but Design for Scandal isn't one of them. He is grievously miscast as a womanizing, fast-talking reporter out to besmirch Judge Rosalind Russell's reputation in order to save his boss's. Pidgeon looks uncomfortable much of the time, and delivers most of his lines without conviction or commitment.Russell, too, gave many memorable performances in both dramas and comedies. Not here. As she so frequently did in the 40s, she panders to Hollywood convention by playing a brittle, sophisticated career woman who finds she needs a man to achieve true happiness. I wonder if many women didn't find that stereotype demeaning, even in 1941.