Movie of the Week: The Secret Six (1931) and Hold Your Man (1933)

This week, we’ve got a double dose of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in The Secret Six (1931)and Hold Your Man (1933).

The Secret Six is really only known today for being Clark Gable and Jean Harlow’s first film together. Both of them had not quite reached star status. Jean, who had recently made a big splash in Howard Hughes’ Hell’s Angels, was borrowed from Warner Brothers by MGM for her small role here.

Clark was billed seventh–lagging behind Wallace Beery, Johnny Mack Brown and Lewis Stone for screen time. Not for long, mind you, as the release of A Free Soul a few months later would cement Clark’s name above the title for decades to come. Clark, Wallace and Jean would re-team a few years later in China Seas (1935), with Wally credited behind Clark and Jean above the title!

His character is Carl, a reporter for a New York newspaper, always out sniffing for a story. He competes with Hank (Johnny Mack Brown), who works for a rival newspaper, for scoops and also the affection of Ann (Harlow). Ann works at a steakhouse owned by crooked Louie (Wallace Beery), who rises very fast to the top of a crime gang. Carl tries to play both sides of the coin and befriend Louie and his cronies while also giving tips to the police and “the secret six,” masked men bent on capturing the gang. The Jean Harlow biography “Platinum Girl” refers to them as ” a group of crusading businessmen who make themselves unintentionally hilarious by sitting around solemnly wearing Batman masks.” I’m inclined to agree!

Clark and Johnny are rival newspapermen and although they are always competing for both stories and Jean’s affections, they are friendly. Johnny is more the central character of the story, until Wally Beery’s gang decides they’ve had enough of him ratting them out and do him in. Then Clark jumps to the occasion, for the greater good and to avenge Johnny’s death. And down comes Wally’s gang, into a crumbling heap. I get the feeling that Wally’s character, a down-on-his-luck simpleton thrown into a gang war before he knows what happens, is supposed to be the character we relate to. Maybe at first, but quickly it is Johnny, then Clark who holds the viewer’s attention.

As Clark’s star was rising, Johnny’s was fading. Having been a star in silent films, he suffered the fate of many of his contemporaries–his acting just wasn’t translating to the talkies. Clark even replaced him in a film later the same year, Laughing Sinners, when audiences laughed at Johnny’s love scenes with Joan Crawford at a preview. His career at MGM soon ended and he was relegated to “B” Westerns at lesser studios.

Clark doesn’t have much to do other than jab at Johnny and make eyes at Jean, but it is an interesting chapter in his early career. He was beginning to emerge out of the cocoon of rough and tumble characters and his comedic and romantic capabilities were starting to show. Clark was offered a contract with MGM after this film–a relationship that would last over 20 years. Jean, too, loaned from Warner Brothers for this role, soon became a star in MGM’s roster. MGM producer Irving Thalberg definitely took notice of Clark and Jean’s natural chemistry. As a result, Red Dust would premiere less than a year later and so a legendary film pair was born. Clark and “the Baby,” whom he affectionately called “Sis”, became close friends and remained so until her untimely death in 1937.

The Secret Six is not one of Clark’s better films and certainly there are much better pre-code gangster movies.

Nutshell review is here

Our next Gable and Harlow pairing is 1933’s Hold Your Man.

At this point, they had had a smash hit with Red Dust and were both “above the title stars.” Gable is Eddie Hall, a small-time con man on the run from the cops when he bursts into Ruby Adams’ (Jean Harlow) apartment and finds her in the bathtub. Ruby and Eddie quickly realize they are two peas in a pod: she is somewhat of a con artist herself, seducing and manipulating men to get what she wants. This is definitely pre-production code stuff, as the film offers no innuendo to cover up the fact that Eddie and Ruby are sleeping together. One of Eddie’s cons goes bad and he ends up in jail. Ruby is waiting for him upon his release and they quickly hatch a plan to con money out of one of Ruby’s suitors. It turns sour when Eddie becomes jealous and accidentally kills the man. When the cops arrive, Ruby and Eddie are on their way back from getting a marriage license. Ruby gets lost in the crowd and nabbed by the cops, while Eddie escapes. She is sentenced to two years in a women’s reformatory. Soon after arriving there, she realizes she is pregnant. When Eddie learns of her pregnancy, he rushes to be by her side. Ruby’s fellow inmates help hide him and orchestrate a wedding for them in the campus chapel, after Eddie pleads for the priest to marry them so his kid can have a chance and not be illegitimate. Just after they are pronounced man and wife, Eddie is hauled away by the cops and Ruby is left alone, crying.

There is a lot of pre-code scandal here: Jean and Clark obviously sleeping together, Clark’s previous paramour (Dorothy Burgess) arriving to “retrieve her cold cream,” one of the girls in the reformatory is a Communist, Jean and Dorothy literally kiss and makeup….I could go on and on.

In this one, Jean really steps up to the plate as a dramatic actress. She has a very poignant scene when she realizes she is pregnant while in the women’s’ reformatory. And the scene where they are torn apart immediately after their wedding is heart-wrenching. Some people call this film sappy, which I understand, but there is just something so sweet about it.

Certainly it is a bit silly that they have to rushed to get married so that Jean is “an honest woman,” just to have him dragged off to jail literally seconds after they are officially married. But hey, it’s a sudsy little soap opera.

Clark and Jean have great chemistry and this is the kind of role that fit him perfectly: the rogue with a heart of gold. He does it better in later films like Honky Tonk, but it’s a nice glimpse at what’s to come!