Movie of the Week: Somewhere I’ll Find You (1942)
The Movie of the Week this week is Somewhere I’ll Find You (1942).
This is one of the few Clark Gable films that when I sat down to re-watch it, I realized I have only seen it maybe three times total. After watching it, I determined that is because, well, I don’t like it very much.
Let’s not beat around the bush: it’s not very good. Clark and Lana Turner were hyped up as “The Team That Makes Steam” so it seems strange to me that MGM would thrust them into this plodding war correspondent story. Lana isn’t really given the opportunity to be the sex goddess she was known to be and Clark’s character’s range here is from being cocky and sugary sweet to Lana to manipulative and downright deceitful to his own brother. Speaking of which, Robert Sterling plays his brother and he is about as interesting as mashed potatoes with no salt and no butter.
This film is infamous and not for a good reason. While Clark was filming this movie, his beloved wife, Carole Lombard, died in a plane crash at the age of 33. You can read more about that here. Carole’s mother, who was like a mother to Clark as well, was also on the flight, along with MGM publicity man Otto Winkler, a dear friend of Clark’s whom he had sent along to assist her. Carole’s death sets a pallor over this film that it just can’t shake. Clark looks haggard in several scenes–I don’t think any amount of stage makeup can cover that level of grief.
There’s also that whole rumor that Clark and Lana had an affair during the making of this film and that is why Carole was rushing back home. I’ve been over that rumor time and time again and frankly I’m tired of people coming at me with it when there is no proof (and new books that come out have no new information, they are just regurgitating old information. What new information could exist about an affair 76 years ago when everyone around involved is dead?). Read about the rumor here.
Filming began soon after Pearl Harbor, so this film was a real “flag waver” meant to inspire patriotism and is quite blatant in its theme of Japan is evil and America will swoop in and save the day.
You can read my full review here.
Nutshell review here.
One Comment
Kelley Small
I’ve read that more than once too, that Clark had schtupped Lana Turner and they’d had a huge fight over it. And yes, she was eager to get home and hated trains. Carole’s mother wanted no part of Flight 3, or a DC3 and something else that involved the number 3. She was a devout numerologist and it boded very badly. Carole won the coin toss for taking an airplane home and fate made it so. 🙁 They bumped some servicemen off the plane too, so Carole’s party would arrive home more quickly. THEY were the lucky ones.