Carole Lombard is one of the great leading ladies during the Golden Age of cinema. A wonderful actress whose career began during the silent era, starring and appearing in many romantic comedies and melodramas for several years until her untimely death in 1942 at the young age of 33. Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray box set showcasing three classic films from her early days with Universal studios. This is the first of at least two collectors sets with the iconic actress. This set focuses on her films from 1930-1932 where she co-starred with some of the greatest American actors in history during that time and later would be future husbands.
The first film, Fast and Loose (1930) is a romantic pre-code comedy having to do with social status and relationships. An upper-class rich tuxedo clad family headed by patriarch Bronson Lenox (Ralph Morgan, The Shop Around the Corner) finds themselves out of their comfort zone when two of the Lenox children fall in love and plan to marry your ‘average’ Americans. Bronson’s daughter Miriam Hopkins (in her first film) stars as Marion Lenox who breaks off an engagement to marry a blue-collar man, mechanic Henry Morgan (Charles Starrett, The Mask of Fu Manchu), while his son Bertie(Henry Wadsworth, The Thin Man) gets involved with a chorus girl (Carole Lombard). Bronson is not happy with either scenario as it interrupts their establishment on society. What will “they” think when the kids from a wealthy family plan to wed regular working-class Americans? Fast and Loose which was designed to be a humorous amusing film, was not there for me, perhaps the moments where we are supposed to laugh are too dated now. The movie is not terrible, but it is far from a major classic, and I found it to be somewhat of a disappointment as Carole Lombard only has a small supporting role in the picture. Fast and Loose clearly belongs to Mariam Hopkins; this is her film without question, and I did not really find her character all that appealing. Carole does not have enough screen time and when she is on screen, she does not have much to do. Veteran actor Ralph Morgan is excellent with his usual strong film presence and to me he was the best character in the film; he would later go on to be the wizard (and a few other characters) in The Wizard of Oz.
The second film, Man of the World (1931) is the one that I enjoy the most out of the three films in this set because of William Powell, who is one of my all-time favorite actors. I love his suave, debonair characters that he always seems to play whether the film is a comedy or a dark melodrama. In this drama, he plays Michael Trevor, a con man who succeeds at scamming a rich uncle Harry Taylor (Guy Kibbee, Gold Diggers of 1933) who is on vacation in Paris with her niece, Mary Kendall (Carole Lombard) and her fiancé, Frank Reynolds (Lawrence Gray, The Patsy). Mary enters her uncle’s home just as Trevor leaves, meeting each other for the first time. Shortly thereafter she is romanced by the ever-charming Trevor who uses her to get more money uncle in his blackmail schemes. Trevor, also falling for Mary, starts to have a guilty conscious about blackmailing her uncle. An ex-girlfriend of Trevor’s (Wynee Gibson, City Streets) shows up. She, still jealous and unable to move on has the goods on Trevor’s dark past and secrets. She blackmails Trevor into using Mary to acquire more money from her uncle, but his love for Mary has made this a difficult situation for him to be in. This triangle leads down a dark path leading to a somewhat unexpected ending. Man of the World is one of those films that changed course from a slightly comedic film to something rather dark, resembling a Film Noir. William Powell’s character goes from a heartless blackmailer to a man with a guilty conscious over a woman which was a dramatic shift in his character, maybe the only thing in question in this tale.
Man of the World is notable for William Powell’s first meeting of Carole Lombard. While I felt there was not a lot of chemistry between them in the film, apparently there was chemistry between the two off-screen as they were married several months later.
The third film, No Man of Her Own (1932) Clark Gable (Gone with the Wind) stars as Jerry “Babe” Stewart as a cheating con-artist card player on the run from the police. While on the run, he meets, falls in love with and marries Connie Randall (Lombard), a bored, suppressed by her family with the always exciting job of being a librarian. Once Stewart gets his eyes on Connie, he follows her to the library where she works and starts putting the lines and moves on her. They get married but things do not stay peachy for long. Connie wants Stewart to stop with his cheat gambling racket or else! Stewart must decide what
Is more important to him, his wife or his racket!
No Man of Her Own is another great feel good classic and many would consider this to be the best of the three. Clark Gable has an incredibly strong screen presence that easily causes the film to rise above mediocrity. His line delivery is top-notch here, and he clicks with Carole Lombard perfectly. The chemistry between them is excellent, which was also the case in real life as her divorce from William Powell, Carol Lombard would marry Clark Gable. The film also has a great supporting cast of veteran actors and actresses including Dorothy Mackaill (Safe in Hell) Grant Mitchell (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) and Lilian Hammer (Alice in Wonderland, 1933)
These three classics are now available on Blu-ray thanks to Kino Lorber. The three films are packaged in a house that is a thing of beauty. The movies are in their own separate Blu-ray cases.
As far as the image quality goes, it is above average with the newest of the three films being the best, that being No Man of Her Own. The films in this set are presented in the original aspect ratios, although Man of the World sports a much thinner look than the standard full frame aspect ratio of 1:37:1. I have never seen anything like it to be honest and whether this thinner look is correct or not is anyone’s guess. Fast and Loose tends to have some blips, jump cuts, some minor print damage and speckles along the way during its 71-minute run-time. Man of the World despite the thinner appearance on this Blu-ray, looks really good overall minimal print issues such as speckles. No Man of Her Own is the most attractive of the three films, having the cleanest, most polished look with great depth.
All three movies do have great contrast, a balanced grey scale and rich black levels. Film grain is present throughout the presentation of each picture. There is no indication that any DNR has been applied.
The audio for all three films is English DTS-HD master audio 2.0. The tracks to each film are perfectly fine with dialog, music and other sounds during the film coming in clear. I will mention that toward the end of Fast and Loose I detected a noticeably short audio drop, but it shouldn’t deter from the listening experience. English subtitles are available for all three films.
There are not many extras for any of the films in this package. Fast and Loose has trailers for other Kino Lorber releases, while Man of the World has an audio commentary by Samm Dieghan. No Man of Her Own also has a commentary track by Nick Pinkerton. Both commentaries are what you would expect from both historians, which is full of background information and a wealth of knowledge spoken with a lot of enthusiasm. The commentaries are very insightful and make these Blu-ray releases that much more special.
The Carole Lombard Collection is well packaged, well-made set. The films may not be the cream of the crop in the great career of Carol Lombard, of course that depends on one’s tastes, but the films at the very least are all solid entertainment. Adding this set to a Blu-ray collection is an easy decision and you can safely retire the DVD counterparts these classics have.
Fast and Loose
Director- Fred C. Newmeyer
Cast- Carole Lomard
Country of Origin- US
Distributor – Kino Lorber
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Man of the World
Director- Richard Wallace
Cast- Carole Lombard, William Powell
Country of Origin- US
Distributor – Kino Lorber
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
No Man of Her Own
Director- Wesley Ruggles
Cast- Carole Lombard, Clark Gable
Country of Origin- US
Distributor – Kino Lorber
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date- 8/1/20