Nothing Sacred
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Film
Nothing Sacred
1937United States
35mm nitrate master positive
Gift of Selznick Properties, Ltd.
2002.1364.0001
TextAbout the print
An original IB Technicolor print, struck at the time of the film’s release, it is part of David O. Selznick’s personal collection, donated to Eastman House in 1999. Marked as “studio print,” the eight single reels show modest scratches on the heads and tails of each reel. By and large, the quality of the color imbibition process has remained intact. Shrinkage rate: 0.90%.
About the film
“Ben Hecht has been squinting at ‘The Front Page’ again and, with one eye crinkled shut and the other sardonically glinting, he has written an impiously impish comedy about that recurrent journalistic marvel, the seven-day wonder. ‘Nothing Sacred,’ which is the title of the eminent professor’s thesis, and which is now being read at the Music Hall, has given the Fourth Estate the once-over (not so lightly) and has left it applying collodion to its wounds. . . . Only a journalistic renegade, teetering on a critical perch, would dare grant it the distinction of being one of the merrier jests of the cinema year. Mr. Hecht, having served his apprenticeship in the toughest Chicago school, is in a position to bat a skeptical eyebrow over the antics of the wayward press. . . . Oh, yes, it’s in Technicolor, which helps. But that isn’t the dominant factor. Like Selznick’s other modern color film, ‘A Star Is Born,’ the reds and blues are merely incidental. Come to think of it, there’s not even a sunset.”
—Frank S. Nugent, The New York Times, November 26, 1937
“In one respect, the show is experimental, for it lavishes technicolor [sic] on an outright comedy. In the few placid sequences, or when Manhattan is seen from the air, the color is effective, but I found it rather trying in the helter-skelter action, and it certainly doesn’t become Miss Lombard.”
—Howard Barnes, The New York Herald Tribune, November 26, 1937
Nitrate Picture Show program notes, May 2015
An original IB Technicolor print, struck at the time of the film’s release, it is part of David O. Selznick’s personal collection, donated to Eastman House in 1999. Marked as “studio print,” the eight single reels show modest scratches on the heads and tails of each reel. By and large, the quality of the color imbibition process has remained intact. Shrinkage rate: 0.90%.
About the film
“Ben Hecht has been squinting at ‘The Front Page’ again and, with one eye crinkled shut and the other sardonically glinting, he has written an impiously impish comedy about that recurrent journalistic marvel, the seven-day wonder. ‘Nothing Sacred,’ which is the title of the eminent professor’s thesis, and which is now being read at the Music Hall, has given the Fourth Estate the once-over (not so lightly) and has left it applying collodion to its wounds. . . . Only a journalistic renegade, teetering on a critical perch, would dare grant it the distinction of being one of the merrier jests of the cinema year. Mr. Hecht, having served his apprenticeship in the toughest Chicago school, is in a position to bat a skeptical eyebrow over the antics of the wayward press. . . . Oh, yes, it’s in Technicolor, which helps. But that isn’t the dominant factor. Like Selznick’s other modern color film, ‘A Star Is Born,’ the reds and blues are merely incidental. Come to think of it, there’s not even a sunset.”
—Frank S. Nugent, The New York Times, November 26, 1937
“In one respect, the show is experimental, for it lavishes technicolor [sic] on an outright comedy. In the few placid sequences, or when Manhattan is seen from the air, the color is effective, but I found it rather trying in the helter-skelter action, and it certainly doesn’t become Miss Lombard.”
—Howard Barnes, The New York Herald Tribune, November 26, 1937
Nitrate Picture Show program notes, May 2015
