{New Article} 1935: Behind the Scenes with Joan, Clark and Bob

Here is one of those articles that is utterly pointless and serves only as a publicity piece from MGM for Forsaking All Others.

I don’t think there was ever any real concern that there was going to be a battle royale for star status between Clark Gable, Joan Crawford and Robert Montgomery but nonetheless:

When Joan Crawford, Clark Gable and Robert Montgomery were announced as the stars of “Forsaking All Others,” under the ace direction of “Woody” Van Dyke, the local gossip columnists assumed their favorite cat-that-ate-the-canary expression and sat back and waited for the worst to happen…

…of course, there was that fascinating angle of Mr. Clark (star) Gable and Mr. (equally-starry) Montgomery doing their stuff in the same picture. For some time now, the Hollywood commentators have been debating the pros and cons as to whether Clark upset Bob’s apple cart when he came along on the MGM lot, or whether Bob had taken the edge off Clark’s popularity.

And who was to get the girl? The most important male in the picture always gets the girl and, obviously (see Hays’ morality rulings), Clark and Bob both couldn’t have Joan. That just wouldn’t do.

And what about the billing? It is stipulated in Joan Crawford’s contract that her name shall always precede the title of any picture in which she appears. And Bob and Clark both have star billing clauses, too. Of course, Bob and Clark had always appeared to be very good friends, but then they’d never been together in the same picture with a woman star before. Some of the best friendships in Hollywood have been broken up over less strained conditions than this.

Yes, take it any way you want it to, it looked like a gossip’s Roman Holiday on the “Forsaking All Others” set, when and if the exciting experiment every got under way. Believe it or not, but the scent of excitement was so keen that three local newspapers and plenty of magazine writers put in requests to be present on the initial day of shooting—or the shooting of anything else that happened to come up, like Miss Crawford picking up her gramophone and throwing it at Mr. Van Dyke’s head, or Bob and Clark amusing themselves by slinging Joan’s Bing Crosby records at each other.

The first shock was the arrival of Mr. Van Dyke himself at the studio gate. Now “Woody” usually shows up in an old sweatshirt with nothing more formal than a cap atop his artistic head. But this day he was all dressed up in a brand-new gray sports suit, a jaunty fedora and a handkerchief protruding fashionably from his pocket. It was the handkerchief that got them. Someone observed: “Maybe ‘Woody’ thinks it would make a better press note to say: ‘The corpse was nattily attired when the body was discovered!’”

The second shock came when the gatemen reported that Joan Crawford in her brand-new white Ford, Clark Gable in his roadster and Robert Montgomery on his sports model phaeton, had arrived on the lot almost simultaneously—all a good half hour before they were expected. Oh, well, the cynics sighed, that didn’t mean anything. You know, you can always tell the star of any picture by his apologetic but always slightly tardy arrival after everyone else has checked in. So that took care of that.

At exactly five minutes to nine Joan Crawford emerged from her brand-new dressing-room and ran into her old pal and co-star, Clark Gable, who was just emerging from his new dressing-room. “Hi,” called Joan. “Going to walk or ride over to the set?” “Let’s walk,” he said, taking Joan’s arm.

They hadn’t gone ten steps when a very hurried and slightly breathless young man overtook them. “What’s the idea of trying to make me late?” demanded Mr. Robert Montgomery, who had never before in the memory of the oldest MGM native been observed to hurry.

Eh. Like I said, a fluff piece for publicity about the new film. You can read it in its entirety here.

There is also another new article around here, from 1934, “In Person.” Also pretty fluffy, written by Adela Rogers St. Johns. You can read it here.

(Articles #13 and #14 posted in 2019)