You think you’ve got a handle on “The Golden Age of Screwball Comedy,” after finishing your survey of the films of Lubitsch and Sturges, Capra and Wilder and the occasional fun outing by Hanks, Fleming, La Cava and Cukor.

And then another one pops and damned if you don’t have to reconsider the lightly-regarded resume of MGM mainstay Jack Conway, and MGM’s place in the screwball firmament.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer was the embodiment of “The Dream Factory” — emphasis on “factory” — back then. But every now and again, something supremely silly got through “the genius of the system,” its lunacy intact. And chances are, that wiseacre William Powell was in it.

Powell, of the clipped mustache and clipped, razor-edged voice, was made for “screwball” — a fast-talker among fast-talkers, a sassy sage in a sea of wise-crackers.

“Libeled Lady” was one of Powell’s many teamings with Myrna Loy. While I like a couple of their many “Thin Man” comedies, I never quite fell in love with those movies. They’re an uneven series that seemed to fall off entirely too steeply for my taste.

And the fact that Powell and Loy play a tippling, dog-loving crime-solving married couple waters down the series’ appeal, too. The banter is the polished patter of two longtime equals, but lacks the edge of folks who don’t get along and work their way towards romance. The films aren’t “predicament” rom-coms, which offer more possibilities than the simple crime busting couple game.

But in “Libeled Lady,” they square off, Spencer Tracy and the iconic blonde Jean Harlow go toe-to-toe, Powell trades shots with Harlow and Tracy and Tracy gets into it with Loy. It’s an embarassment of bantered riches.

“Gladys, do you want me to KILL myself?”

“Did you change your INSURANCE?”

Screenwriters Maurine Dallas Watkins, Howard Emmett Rogers and George Oppenheimer cooked up the plot, about a newspaper that blunders into a libelous smear of socialite Connie Allenbury (Loy). Newspaperman Warren Haggerty (Tracy) abandons his latest wedding day with the long-suffering Gladys (Harlow) to try and save them.

There’s nothing for it but to track down that reporter he fired, smartassed Bill Chandler (Powell). There’s nobody like Chandler for scheming them out of a libel suit. But he’s nowhere to be found.

“Maybe that guy’s dead!”

“Yeah, it’d be just like him to die at a time like this.”

But find him they do, and Haggerty begs and bargains the high-living/free-spending Chandler back into the fold. There’s nothing for it, the shifty hack says, but for him to go to Europe, woo Miss Allenbury into a honey trap and scandalize her out of suing.

Chandler’ll need a quicky marriage before setting sail. Who’ll agree to be his wife to ensure “cheating with a married man” headlines? Only Gladys is at hand.

Haggerty begs — “Would I ask you to do this thing for me if I didn’t consider you practically my wife?

Gladys demurs — “Would you ask your wife to hook up with that ape?”

Chandler weighs in — “The ape objects.”

But they marry and he sprints off to Europe to pass himself off as a fellow swell, to pretend to be a published expert on fishing to impress Connie’s dad (Walter Connolly) and maybe sweep cynical Connie right off her feet.

“That man is a first class angler!”

“If he’s first class, I’m traveling steerage.“

The romantic complications are deliciously Byzantine, as Chandler repels/charms Connie and Gladys, almost in spite of himself. Their exchanges crackle, but on different wavelengths as Connie is plainly out of his league and Gladys isn’t as “dumb blonde” as she seems.

This escapist romp takes place on those gorgeous dream factory soundstages — save for one Sonora, California trout stream interlude that is pure slapstick and probably inspired the ’60s rom-com “Man’s Favorite Sport.”

One definition of “screwball” is “a sex comedy without the sex.” And one shared characteristic of “screwball” is how well so many of these films age. The wit, the pace, the loopy predicaments, they hold up better than many a stage comedy of that era, even when you know where all this is heading.

And what we’re “heading” to is a finale when everybody has to explain to everybody else just what the hell has been going on here, and why. As knotty as this plot has been, we know it’s not going to be easy.

“She may be his wife, but she’s engaged to me!”

Powell, Tracy and Loy would go on to legendary careers. But Jean Harlow would be dead within a year, one of the great tragedies of Hollywood’s golden age.

Silent screen veteran Jack Conway would find success with Clark Gable, Robert Taylor and MGM ensemble pictures like “Saratoga,” “Boom Town” and “Honky Tonk,” with one more Powell-Loy romp (“Love Crazy”) thrown in.

And screenwriter Maurine Watkins would write the play that the movie “Roxie Hart” and the musical and blockbuster film “Chicago” were based on.

But on the screen, you’d be hard-pressed to find more fun that any of them were associated with than this classic of the screwball school.

Rating: “approved”

Cast: William Powell, Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy

Credits: Directed by Jack Conway, scripted by Maurine Dallas Watkins, Howard Emmett Rogers and George Oppenheimer. An MGM release on Movies!, Apple TV, Amazon, Vudu, etc.

Running time: 1:37