{New Article} 1936: Clark Gable Warns Stenos What Happens When Husbands Get Caught in a Triangle

This article (and yes that is actually the long, rambling title) is quite obviously just a piece to promote Clark Gable’s latest film, Wife vs. Secretary. Clark, who never worked in an office, is asked about husbands having affairs with their secretaries.

“The office husband problem is a tougher subject to talk on than politics—unless you stick to the fence, and I don’t like people who do that. Anyway, I’ve never worked in an office so I wouldn’t know much about that, but, just from the way you have to figure these things out for a picture, I’d say that office wives have to be as careful as office husbands—and the poor bosses are sure on the spot.

“Look at it this way,” he said, warming to the subject. “The girl in the office is apt to have a tendency to idealize the guy she’s working for. After all, he pays the check, is ‘Mr.’ So-and-So and is something of a big shot in his comparative field. Her whole job is to build that guy up so that he seems to amount to something even if she knows darned well he isn’t half that good.

“A lot of them get to believe it themselves if ‘the boss’ is at all attractive, but the thing that the office wife is apt to overlook that the house wife can’t, is that this big, bold, dashing man of affairs with the super-salesman’s personality is also subject to hangovers, may even wear bed-socks and probably has a foul disposition before his orange juice or bromo seltzer.

“That’s one side of it. But now take the spot Van Sanford was in after Faith Baldwin got through with him. He was in love with his wife. He had a grand looking girl in the office who practically ran the business for him. She was crazy about him. He liked her a lot—nothing serious, just mutual understanding and respect coupled with a common interest in the business. A strong bond? Certainly! But any woman who hasn’t the self-confidence in herself as a wife to meet such a situation and call it for what it is worth, is either going to worry herself to death anyway or lose her husband’s respect—and, eventually, love—by unfounded jealousies.

“In the picture, Myrna Loy, as Mrs. Sanford, does have that confidence in herself and it brings them back together again after a temporary split growing out of malicious gossip. People in real life are continually faced with that problem. If either one of them are at all attractive. The triangle is the world’s oldest story, but it’s how a certain set of characters react to it and what they do that make it interesting.

“I don’t think that the office wife situation is as acute these days as it used to be and, frankly, one reason I think so is that pictures have shown both men and women so many true-to-life situations and how to meet them that people are beginning to profit subconsciously from the examples set them.

“There’s no question, for example, the most modern wives are far better companions for their husbands than they were, say, thirty years ago. They go places with their men; since their so-called enfranchisement they do much the same things that used to be the sole prerogative of the males. And, therefore, they have less to fear in losing their husband’s interest.”

He says “Sanford” but in the film their last name is “Stanhope.” One of the many clues throughout this  pointless article that Clark did not really say any of this. He’s really going to sit around and wax poetic on office relations? Doubtful. This one is pure MGM public relations department.

If you want to though, you can read the rest of the article in The Article Archive.

(#3 Article posted in 2019)