Gossip Friday: Watch This Boy!

From August 1931:

Every reader of Adela Rogers St. John’s interesting Hollywood stories in New Movie [magazine] will want to see the talkie built at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios from her novel, “A Free Soul.” The story makes a very effective vehicle for Norma Shearer.

The motherless Jan Ashe has been raised by her father, a hard-drinking lawyer, to do as she likes. Conventions are something to break–until she discovers that she can’t find happiness in smashing the rules of life. There’s a murder trial sequence that will surely get you.

“A Free Soul” is superbly played. Miss Shearer steps further upward as the reckless Jan, Lionel Barrymore is admirable as her sodden but brilliant father, while Clark Gable–watch this boy!–is corking as the gambler who wins Jan for a few dangerously menacing moments.