13. Libeled Lady (1936)

Directed by Jack Conway
Written by Maurine Dallas Watkins, et al.
Starring Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy, and Spencer Tracy

If only all seductions hinged on fish. Much to the surprise of undercover reporter Bill Chandler and aspiring bride Gladys Benton, the aphorism “fake it ’til you make it” applies to both life and love. If only the newspaper hadn’t libeled socialite Connie Allenbury, who plans to sue for five million. Maybe editor Warren Haggerty would have found time to finally wed the oft-spurned Gladys. But the delay proves to be serendipitous. Only an elaborate deception built on Bill’s sham marriage to Gladys can stop the lawsuit. That, and an encyclopedic knowledge of trout fishing. How else can a guy charm Connie’s single-minded father? Imagine mapping out the plot of a screwball comedy. So many off-shoots and dead-ends, multiple paths to the same goal of heterosexual marriage. Think of a Wolfenstein map. I used to play that game at my next-door neighbor D’s house. If I remember correctly, the buckets of pixelated blood elicited only mild controversy. The point of the game, after all, was to kill Nazis and, ultimately, Mecha-Hitler. Like, their blood should be spilled. The real hullabaloo came with the console release of Mortal Kombat, the one-on-one fighting game in which you could execute gory coups de grâce against your opponents. The evening after the game was released, D’s dad drove him, me, and my other next door neighbor to Toys “R” Us so we could play the demo version. D had memorized some of the attack combos from a video game magazine. At the store he manned the controls and, after winning a match, delivered an uppercut that ripped the head and spine from the body of the other combatant. FATALITY, the game announced. We cheered, taking pleasure in the grim spectacle. A few years later, as teenagers, we lost interest in video games and instead smoked a fair amount of weed together. But my neighborhood friends were a little older, and we went to different high schools. We drifted apart. Eventually I settled in with my goth friends, who were more like me: sensitive queerdos with emotional issues and a love of dark music. We also smoked a lot of weed. It always made me feel so sad the next day. But that never stopped me.