Movie of the Week: Idiot’s Delight (1939)

You get to watch Clark Gable dance the very best he can and Norma Shearer do her very best Greta Garbo impression in this week’s film, Idiot’s Delight (1939).

Gable is Harry Van, a World War I vet and struggling vaudeville performer when he meets Irene (Norma Shearer), while performing in a traveling show in Omaha, Nebraska. He is the assistant to the hilariously inept Madame Zulieka (Laura Hope Crews), she an acrobat. They have a brief romance before going their separate ways. Many years pass as Harry tries different acts and odd jobs in between. Fast forward to 1939 and Harry is on a train in Europe with his current act, Les Blondes, a group of attractive bubbly blonde back-up dancers. They get stopped from getting into Geneva due to the impending war. Stranded at a mountaintop hotel, Harry meets a Russian countess who seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to a certain acrobat from years before. As he squints at her and rolls her eyes at her over-the-top mannerisms, he admits to still being in love with Irene, the girl from Omaha.

The film was based on a hit Broadway play starring Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt. It won the Pulitzer Prize and was revered for its strong anti-Nazi themes. When MGM bought the film rights, all anti-Nazi references were removed, leaving just the structure of the story. Pre-World War II America wouldn’t want to see such negativity, after all, and who wants to ruin the foreign receipts by risking it being banned in Europe?

I have a love-hate relationship with this film. There are a lot of good things about it–Clark dances, is his usual smirking self, the supporting cast is great with Laura Hope Crews (Aunt Pittypat!), Burgess Meredith in a brief but meaty role, those pretty blondes (one of which is Virginia Grey, a future girlfriend of Clark’s), the script has some snap….

But yet I just don’t really like it. The play is probably better, with the anti-Nazi theme left in, and this whole is-she-or-isn’t-she thing with Norma’s character gets old and plodding before you’re halfway done with the film.

I am sorry to say that the first time I saw this film it was my introduction to Norma Shearer. Had I seen one of her fabulous pre-codes first, I might have warmed up to her sooner. But no, my first introduction to Norma was her overdoing a Greta Garbo impersonation in a platinum wig. I was not impressed and it took me a while to want to see another one of her films. Norma’s left-over-from-silents tendency to over-exaggerate is best taken in small doses and Idiot’s Delight is a whole bowlful.  Apparently, Garbo was the initial choice for the role of Irene. In contrast, I think she would have played the Russian countess role rather well, but not so much mousy Irene. Norma plays brunette Irene okay, but with the same wide-eyed, overly enthusiastic youthfulness that I think was left over from the beginning of her Marie Antoinette  (1938). I must admit however that Norma looks quite beautiful when she’s dolled up as the Russian countess; her face is flawless and those costumes by Adrian are flat out gorgeous!

The script being derived from the play, it has one too many long meandering monologues. One that I do find particularly impressive is Norma’s long tale about a young English couple she meets in the hotel and their possible fates in the war.

It’s hard though to find any depth in the character of Irene and I find myself wondering why Harry was bothering trying to figure out if this uppity countess was indeed his beloved from “Oma-ha-ha.” The weak premise of a woman playing someone else to fool a suitor had been done before in Quality Street (1937) with Katharine Hepburn, and would be done again in Two-Faced Woman (1941) with Greta Garbo. In those two instances, the man comes off looking like quite the numskull for believing the farce. At least Clark’s Harry shows his disbelief early and is quick to roll his eyes and make a snide comment here and there.

To be sensitive to World War II audiences, the film has two endings. In the international version, Gable and Shearer are seen solemnly singing a hymn while the hotel is being bombed. In the domestic version, the hotel is still being bombed but the two of them start carrying on about their new act and Clark begins playing an uplifting tune on the piano. Since the United States had not yet joined the war, they thought it was best to film two endings: a more poetic one for international audiences to show their sympathy for the war, and an uplifting carefree ending for American audiences.

Now, as for Clark dancing…..it’s really not that bad. It doesn’t seem natural to him, but it’s not so awful. All the gossip bits leading up to the premiere of this film went on and on about Clark not being able to dance. He wasn’t going to take Fred Astaire’s parts that’s for sure, but for the few scenes required, he did just fine.

Full review is here

Nutshell review is here

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