Films
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Movie of the Week: Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise (1931) and Sporting Blood (1931)
This week, Clark Gable loves Greta Garbo in Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise and Madge Evans in Sporting Blood (both 1931). Susan Lenox is a fine little pre-code film, mostly notable only because his co-star is the Great Garbo. Garbo is Susan (born Helga), an illegitimate orphan raised in shame by her aunt and her cruel husband, who treats her like a slave. He picks a man for her to marry “so you won’t be without a wedding ring like your mother”. When the man tries to rape her, she runs away in a rainstorm, seeking shelter in a barn owned by architect Rodney (Gable). Rodney lets her stay…
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Movie of the Week: They Met in Bombay (1941)
This week, Clark Gable and Rosalind Russell are rival jewel thieves in They Met in Bombay (1941). Clark is Gerald Meldrick, a jewel thief who has trailed a British duchess to India to steal her antique diamond necklace. He encounters Anya Von Duren (Russell), a rival thief out for the same score. She succeeds in stealing the necklace, but he fools her into believing he is a detective and gets the necklace from her. She figures him out and he proposes they be partners. They hop on a Chinese ship headed for Hong Kong but the crooked captain (Peter Lorre) tries to turn them in for ransom. Paddling their…
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Movie of the Week: Dance Fools Dance (1931) and Laughing Sinners (1931)
This week, we’ve got a Clark Gable/Joan Crawford pre-code double feature: Dance Fools Dance (1931) and Laughing Sinners (1931). These two films were made back-to-back, as Clark, a rising star in MGM’s roster, and Joan, one of MGM’s shiniest stars, were engaged in heated love affair. Clark’s of course second fiddle to Joan in both of these. In Dance Fools Dance, Joan is Bonnie Jordan, a rich girl suddenly thrown into the real world after her father dies and she finds out all his money is gone. She goes to work as a writer for the local newspaper. One of her assignments is to go undercover and get a story on…
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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…
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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…
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Gossip Friday: Boom Town Preview Postscripts
From November 1940: Boom Town Preview Postscripts: It required 27 varied location sites and a total of 41 sets to screen this story. Metro buily a boom town of its own for this picture. Clark Gable has been suggesting an oil story for himself for about three years; at the age of 18 he worked as a tool dresser in Bigheart, Oklahoma. Spencer Tracy sets a new record for himself in screen fisticuffs, engaging in five battles; this is the second time he and Gable fight each other in films, although the last time, in “San Francisco,” they wore boxing gloves. Gable is two inches taller in the picture than…
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Movie of the Week: Parnell (1937)
This week, Clark Gable is a mutton-chopped Irish politician in love with married Myrna Loy in Parnell. In this historical melodrama, Gable is Charles Parnell, an 1880’s Irish politician dubbed “The Uncrowned King of Ireland” for fighting for Irish freedom from British rule. The British trump up false charges against him to try and keep his efforts down but are unsuccessful. But then Parnell falls in love with Katie O’Shea (Loy), the estranged wife of a British Parliament member. When her husband finds out, he files for divorce and names Parnell as co-respondent, resulting in political and social ruin for Parnell. Just as he begins to fight back for his…
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Movie of the Week: Teacher’s Pet (1958)
This week, Clark Gable is Doris Day’s star pupil in Teacher’s Pet (1958). Clark is Jim Gannon, a hard-nosed editor of a New York newspaper. When Professor Erica Stone (Day) requests that Jim speak to her journalism class, he rebuffs her with a sarcastic and mean-spirited letter, saying that people can only learn the newspaper business by working in the newspaper business and classes are a waste of time. When Jim, forced by his boss, goes down to Erica’s class to apologize, she reads the letter aloud to the class before he has the chance to explain himself. Embarrassed but charmed by Erica, he signs up for her class and…
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Movie of the Week: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
This week, Clark Gable is legendary mutineer Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty. In this adaption of the famous tale of mutiny on the high seas in 1787, Clark is first mate to the tyrannical Captain Bligh (Charles Laughton) on a two year voyage from England to Tahiti to obtain breadfruit plants. Bligh beats and starves the sailors, all while Christian and fellow officer Bynum (Franchot Tone) stand and watch. Christian finally can’t stand it anymore and rallies the men to overthrow Bligh and take over the ship. They send Bligh and his supporters adrift at sea in a small boat and take the Bounty back to Tahiti. They…
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Movie of the Week: It Happened One Night (1934)
This week, because the Academy Awards are on Sunday, our Movie of the Week is Clark Gable’s Academy Award-winning performance as a wise crackin’ newspaperman in It Happened One Night. If you’re a Clark Gable fan, then you’ve seen It Happened One Night. Now an essential classic and considered the first screwball comedy, it is the prime example of a sleeper hit. Produced by the “Siberia” of studios by an un-appreciated director and performed by two stars against their will, it seems an unlikely entry into Academy Award history. But with a snappy screenplay and chemistry that burned through the screen, it indeed earns its place in history. Gable…
