The centennial of Carole Lombard has been celebrated quietly, but nonetheless in many of the best places (though unfortunately not on DVD). Turner Classic Movies made her Star of the Month in October, Lombard’s birth month, and Film Forum in NYC has recently begun a nice tribute of 23 films, several not on DVD. Seeing the blonde queen of screwball on a large screen obviously has its advantages. You tend to see things previously unappreciated, assuming it’s a relatively good print. The long scar on her left cheek is especially prominent. She was in a serious car accident in the 1920s and I guess this was a side effect. Beauty requires “imperfection” though, right? And her eyes. Oh my. Not only the wide and intense focus, but the piercing stares that are only magnified on the big screen. This was a movie star for any era. I was reminded of Norma Desmond’s assertion that the silent stars had “faces.” Carole Lombard certainly fit the bill.

Like a lot of actors and actresses, Lombard was petite but it’s nearly imperceptible while watching. In the particular film I’ve chosen to discuss a little here, Virtue, she has a scene that involves violently slapping another woman and threatening to kill her. And for those few minutes while it’s happening, you believe her fully. For most of the film, she settles into a natural rhythm of one-liners and soft focus close-ups, but never pretend this wasn’t an actress capable of much more than looking nice. Speaking of which, the big screen also accentuates Lombard’s reluctance to wearing a bra. Without being overtly sensual or seemingly even trying to be alluring, she completely does it. She was approachably perfect, meaning she had an incredible beauty but her screen persona, possibly owing to those midwestern roots, was more normal than glamorous. Part of the appeal is a rare intelligence you can sense in nearly all of her performances. I don’t know a lot about the former Miss Jane Peters, and the lack of a good in-print biography doesn’t help, but few actresses of the studio system era were in possession of the built-in wit Lombard carried around. She makes things funny in a completely different way than, say, Mae West or Jean Harlow. There’s some elegance in Lombard’s screwiness.

Despite her appearance - underlined by that shock of platinum and the pencil eyebrows that hardly ever look appealing on anyone else - she didn’t seem concerned with playing less wholesome types. I saw Lady by Choice on TCM when it aired in October, and even though it’s understandably sugarcoated, her character is a stripper who’s arrested and then takes in a drunk vagrant to play the part of her mother. In Virtue, she’s a full-on prostitute. Her character, Mae, gets picked up for solicitation by the police and tries to lay low. She ends up falling for cab driver Pat O’Brien, but doesn’t tell him about her past. He does find out, probably at the absolute worst time possible, and it creates a significant rift in the relationship. They try to work through it until one of those convenient cinematic twists rears its head and Mae ends up behind bars on a murder rap. O’Brien’s character leans in the direction of being a stereotypical and chauvinistic male, but he’s not without redeeming qualities and soon tries to clear his wife’s name.

Virtue tries to be a whole lot in just a little more than an hour’s worth of time and that somewhat haphazard quality prevents it from focusing heavily on any of the plot details. The film, like a lot of pictures of the ’30s, seems more concerned with simply moving things along before the audience tires of any particular aspect. There’s a charm to that sort of approach and Virtue plays especially well when examined in such a regard. Its screenplay was by the extraordinary Robert Riskin, who wrote many of Frank Capra’s best films including It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, and Meet John Doe. In keeping with the ideas of the day, the female lead is portrayed as inferior to the male income-earner, but Lombard was such a strong actress in every sense of the word that she’s almost misogynist-proof. Can you think of a film where she comes across as helpless or dainty? I’m not sure there’s a cage brave enough to hold her. Whatever overriding ideas contained in the screenplay, possibly including the theme of redemption obtained by establishing a nice, normal life and literally destroying the older existence, Lombard ends up overpowering O’Brien (and everyone else) so that the helpless female idea is rendered inapplicable.

Adding further interest to a picture already full of curiosities, the only one of Mae’s former acquaintances who turns out to be helpful is played by Mayo Methot. Aside from Methot’s impossibly funny name, she’s known primarily for two unflattering facts. First, she was married to Humphrey Bogart when he met Lauren Bacall, though their marriage had been troubled nearly from the start. Methot was also a depressive alcoholic who died when she was only 47 years old, alone in a hotel room outside Portland, Oregon and not found for days afterwards. It’s truly astounding to think that Mayo Methot was only 27 or 28 when Virtue was filmed. She looks a decade or two older. Harsh doesn’t begin to describe that face.

Lombard, by comparison, would’ve been probably 23 when Virtue was filmed, given its 1932 release. Her premature death has provided timeless youth, but there’s nothing precocious or ingenue-like here. As in most of Lombard’s lead roles, she displays confidence and certainty with aplomb. In a lesser role, she also does this in the other screening I caught -  the 1933 feature White Woman, which I didn’t hardly care for as much. Charles Laughton really, really tries to ham it up, and even though he’s often funny it goes too far over the top, to the point where I wondered if the director Stuart Walker was even attempting to rein in Laughton. One of the other main actors, Kent Taylor, makes a weak impression, as well. Some strange business with Percy Kilbride and a chimpanzee does get points in the oddity department. Even so, I’d be glad to pick up both films on DVD if Sony, which controls the Columbia-produced Virtue, and Universal, which has Paramount’s pre-1950 back catalog including White Woman, would pick up the pace.