Movie of the Week: Any Number Can Play (1949)

This week, Clark is a gambling house owner and Alexis Smith is his loving wife in Any Number Can Play (1949).

Clark is Charley King, the owner of a gambling house in New York. After being diagnosed with a heart problem, he begins to re-evaluate his life: his relationship with his wife (Smith) and teenage son (Darryl Hickman), his business and his associates.

Clark learns in the first few minutes of the film (from his doctor who smokes a cigarette and drinks liquor while he tells him) that he has angina pectoris, a heart condition brought on by stress (so the doctor says). Ironically, Clark’s fifth wife, whom he would marry five years after this film, suffered from the same exact heart condition and had to take nitro glycerin, just as Clark does in this film. Also, of course, Clark himself died of a heart attack eleven years after this film was made.

You have a sepctactular supporting cast here: Mary Astor (last seen with Clark in 1932’s Red Dust), Frank Morgan, Audrey Totter, Wendell Corey, Lewis Stone, Marjorie Rambeau, Leon Ames.

Audrey is Alexis’ sister, unhappily married and jealous of her sister. She is sad and mopey through the film, hating her husband, who works for (and steals from) Clark. “He never does anything good enough for me to love him or bad enough for me to leave him,” she complains to her sister.

Oddly, MGM put out a lot of publicity stills with Clark and Audrey in romantic poses, even though they play brother and sister-in-laws.They did briefly date in real life at this time, so maybe that fueled it?

Mary Astor, an old flame, still pines for Clark after 20 years, saying her four former husbands all kind of looked like him. “All I ask is for you to let me love you. Any contributions will be gratefully accepted,” she says woefully. There’s more sparks in their one pining scene than he has with Alexis Smith the whole film; you kind of want him to run off with her!

The best part of this film, to me, is seeing Clark Gable play a father to a teenaged boy. In his 30 year career, there are only a handful of movies in which he plays a father and this is the only one where he has a teenager, amazingly enough. Not that Clark is the ideal father here. Turns out he worked too much, too many nights (to provide the kid with the best schools, a car, etc as he points out) and didn’t spend enough time with the boy. His son resents him for running an unsavory business; some girls at school won’t date him and the boys all want him to “get them in” his father’s joint.

“Honest kid, I don’t think you’re old enough to judge your father,” Clark tells him.

Clark laments, “I want my kid to like me. Why is it I can get along with everyone except my own kid? It’s true, at first I didn’t want a kid. But he was too young to know that.” Clark is instantly proud when he’s told that his son was thrown in jail for being part of a riot at a restaurant. That’s some displaced pride, but okay.

Alexis Smith was not Clark’s favorite leading lady, and it shows. She was borrowed from Warner Brothers for the role and they just don’t have any sizzle here. She’s just not sexy, which the role doesn’t call for, but she is just lacking any kind of sizzle. I suppose you can’t say she is miscast as the long suffering, neglected wife who wishes they were still broke. She’s got the pained expression down.

I’ve heard it said more than once that Clark’s character in this film is like what would have eventually become of his gambling, swaggering Blackie Norton from San Francisco, years in the future. That’s rather true, and it’s a good change of pace for Clark. Audiences at the time didn’t think so, missing the smirking Blackie-type characters.

The entire film takes place over the course of less than 24 hours, as Clark comes to terms with his age, his health and what life is supposed to be all about. This one is middle of the road for me; I like Clark’s performance in it, and I like the fact that he is 48 years old and has been married for 20 years and is the a father of a teenager, instead of a bachelor chasing women half his age. The script is good and the cast is great, I suppose overall it’s not this overwhelmingly fantastic film but it’s not a bad way to spend an hour and a half.

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