Outspoken & Freckled

For my first installment of the Carole Lombard Filmography Project, I will be profiling Man of the World (1931) the first film Lombard made with good friend and future husband William Powell. The movie was produced by Universal, and released in March of 1931.

The focus of the story is on a racketeer blackmailer, Michael Trevor (formerly Jimmy Powers, played by William Powell) who makes a living off the printing of a scandal sheet in Paris, blackmailing Americans out of thousands of dollars to keep their secret Parisian rendezvous out of the tabloids. His attention at the start of the film is on a Pennsylvania coal baron by the name of Harold Taylor (Guy Kibbee) whom he is attempting to blackmail for an alleged rendezvous with a blonde. Posing as a novelist, Trevor approaches Taylor urging him to prosecute the editor…