Movie of the Week: Lone Star (1952) and Never Let Me Go (1953)

This week, Clark Gable is an 1845 Texas cattle baron chasing Ava Gardner and an American war correspondent chasing Gene Tierney in the back-to-back features Lone Star (1952) and Never Let Me Go (1953).

In Lone Star, a semi-factual historical western, Clark is Devereaux Burke, a cattle baron enlisted by President Andrew Jackson (Lionel Barrymore) in 1845 to help convince Texas to become part of the United States. He encounters newspaperwoman Martha Ronda (Ava Gardner) and her beau, Senator Thomas Craden (Broderick Crawford) who want Texas to become its own republic. Devereaux and Martha soon fall in love despite their differing opinions and he prepares for a final showdown with Craden.

There isn’t much memorable about this film, honestly. I’d say it’s in my bottom three Gable films. It’s a shame, as it is a real waste of Clark and Ava’s fine chemistry. She’s absolutely gorgeous here, whether she’s stone-faced in the newspaper office or fluttering her eyelashes at Clark in a billowy ballgown. These two do better when they are courting in the jungle the following year in Mogambo.

Director Vincent Sherman later recalled that they all realized the film was awful during production, but being their assignment, got through it anyway without much gusto. Broderick Crawford was in a drunken stupor throughout filming and Gable and Gardner were just “showing up, reading lines and going home,” recalled Sherman. The film has all the Clark Gable elements—he’s the rogue, wise crackin’ womanizer, full of wit and flirty lines, he punches a few guys out and wins the girl. But it all wasn’t cohesive here. To me, the story just isn’t very interesting. A Western about why Texas decided to join the Union…yawn.

Clark was a bit preoccupied, as he had recently asked his fourth wife, Sylvia Ashley, for a divorce and she was moving out as he began the film. His excessive alcohol consumption during this period apparently made the producers decide to film in black and white rather than color as originally imagined, and to limit his close-ups as often his head and hands would shake.

Lone Star was the last film for legendary Lionel Barrymore, who was wheelchair-bound due to severe arthritis and an injured hip. Clark personally went to see him to convince him to take on the small role of Andrew Jackson. Barrymore died in 1954.

Nutshell review is here

Full review is here

After Clark Gable finished Lone Star, it was decided that he would spend 18 months overseas to take advantage of a federal tax loophole. It seems that if he resided out of the States for a period of 18 months, all of his earnings during that time would be except from income tax. Of course, Clark was in the highest tax bracket and with being in the midst of a divorce, this would mean a large savings that he could certainly use. MGM lined up three projects for Clark to do while he fiddled around for 18 months: Never Let Me Go, Mogambo and Betrayed .

In June 1952, after his divorce from Sylvia was finalized, Clark arrived in London to begin Never Let Me Go.

Clark is Philip Sutherland, an American war correspondent stationed in Moscow. He falls in love with Marya (Gene Tierney), a Russian ballet dancer. After they wed, Philip receives orders to ship back to the United States, but they find that the Russian government will not grant Marya a passport to leave Russia. When Philip is tricked into leaving without her, he sets about forming a plan to smuggle her out of Russia.

Clark was quite satisfied with the director, Delmer Dawes, who he had known for twenty years. Also the producer was Clarence Brown, who had often directed Gable in the ’30’s and was now semi-retired and working only as a producer. Gene Tierney was 19 years younger than him and their romance seems rather far-fetched. Tierney recalled Clark fondly in her autobiography: “I had no romantic interest in Gable. I considered him an older man I saw him as sweet and gentle, a hard crust with a soft core. I thought that quality was what came across onscreen and made him adored by so many. He and I laughed about our beginnings in Hollywood. We both had physical drawbacks that might have kept us off the screen–my teeth and his ears. He was an thoughtful man. My feet were blistered from extensive ballet lessons [for the film] and he remembered to bring me back some salve from Paris that helped a lot.”

I feel that the script here really calls for a younger man; Clark looks too old to be pining after this young girl, swimming across oceans, downing shots and coming up with elaborate schemes. He does his best with what he is given though, and the love story is sweet albeit implausible. Gene is gorgeous and quite the talented ballet dancer, as it turns out.

Clark was quite distracted on set. He had begun an affair with beautiful French model Suzanne Dadolle and spent his weekends off traveling back to Paris to be with her. He had also just purchased a custom-made Jaguar and him and Suzanne could be spotted zipping around the French countryside on weekends. Also, he was set to jump right into Mogambo after Never Let Me Go was completed, so he was doing wardrobe fittings and reading the script for Mogambo in his free time.

Never Let Me Go ended up flopping miserably at the box office. As a result, MGM was uninterested in meeting Gable’s demands in his contract renewal. His next project,Betrayed, was to be his last at MGM.

Nutshell review is here

Full review is here