"Lucky Night" starring Myrna Loy & Robert Taylor

Scenes from "Lucky Night" (1939) directed by Norman Taurog, starring Myrna Loy & Robert Taylor.

1939 is considered one of the all-time great years in Hollywood history. Many critics consider it the greatest ever with regards to outstanding films being released in one golden year. Among the films that MGM released that august year were: The Women, Ninotchka, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, and The Shop Around the Corner. The other studios had strong entries as well: Dark Victory, Stagecoach, Destry Rides Again, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Love Affair, Young Mr. Lincoln, Only Angels Have Wings and Wuthering Heights.

Bob Taylor’s first project of the year was a film that few thought could have missed: a comedy opposite one of the screen’s most popular actresses, Myrna Loy.

Loy had reached great popularity as Nora Charles in the Thin Man films and scored in other hits such as Libeled Lady, Test Pilot and Too Hot to Handle. In 1937 she was proclaimed “The Queen of the Movies” with Clark Gable voted as her King. Unfortunately, the film that Metro selected to pair Loy and Bob is not in the league of their better films.

Myrna Loy is one of the rare Taylor costars who didn’t particularly like him. “The studio thought it would be a good idea to team me with Robert Taylor, Metro’s reigning heartthrob,” she later wrote in her autobiography. “Our first day on the set I played records, which we did sometimes to fill those endless waits between shots... I was listening to some wonderful Cuban music when Robert Taylor approached, ‘Do you have to play that sexy stuff all the time? It’s the dirtiest music I ever heard.’

‘That was my first day with him. I thought, ‘Oh, brother!’ He was a bit stuffy, but we got along all right —during the picture, that is: later on I didn’t get along with him.” In fact, Loy’s overall opinion of Bob is clouded by the role he played in the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings of the late 1940s. Loy was a lifelong liberal who publicly opposed the hearings and the blacklist that resulted and took a dim view of those who supported the committee, the so-called “friendly witnesses.” She called Taylor one of the “tattletales.”

Loy also alleges that during the filming of 'Lucky Night' Taylor tried to cook up a “triangle” with hopes of making Barbara Stanwyck jealous. “He wanted her [Stanwyck] to think I was after him,” Loy wrote nearly forty years later. “Barbara’s maid mentioned this to Theresa [Loy’s maid], who assured her that nothing could have been further from the truth. I’m not sure Barbara believed her, because on the last day of shooting she came by in a limousine and whisked him off to be married.” (Not quite true, Bob and Stanwyck “whisked” off to be married during the making of his next film, Lady of the Tropics , with Hedy Lamarr.) -"Robert Taylor: A Biography" (2013) by Charles Tranberg

Film historian Lawrence Quirk later wrote, "The picture was obviously meant to be light and amusing, but it cried out for a sophisticated, subtle script, and the directorial touch of a Lubitsch or a McCarey." It's curious that MGM thought to put Taylor and Loy in a production like Lucky Night when the script obviously wasn't up to snuff for stars of their stature.

Nonetheless, both actors recovered quickly: within months, Loy would appear successfully opposite Tyrone Power in The Rains Came (1939),

while Taylor would soon score his own sizable -- and much-needed -- hit with Waterloo Bridge (1940). Lucky Night director Norman Taurog was never a significant stylist, but he was a workhorse in several genres. In early 1939, while in production on this film, he received an Oscar® nomination for Boys Town (1938); he lost the award to Frank Capra, for You Can't Take It with You (1938). Taurog had previously won the Best Director award for Skippy (1931). Source: www.tcm.com