October Movie of the Month: Possessed (1931)

Joan Crawford is one of those actresses that people seem to either love or hate with no real in-between. Love her or hate her, she’s hard to escape if you’re a Gable fan, as not only is she his most frequent leading lady onscreen, she also was his romantic interest for many years off screen. You can read more about their affair here.

Possessed isn’t the first film that Clark and Joan starred together in, but it is by far the steamiest. Having fallen head over heels in love (or maybe lust) by this time, their chemistry seeps onto the screen and is undeniable. Both were married at the time but that didn’t seem to stop them.

Later in her life, Joan had this to say:

“I think one of the sexiest scenes I ever did was with Clark Gable. I have to admit it’s easier to do an effectively sexy scene with an actor you are attracted to. Clark was the co-star on-screen I was most attracted to in all my years as an actress. I have to admit that I was even more attracted to him off-screen.

In ‘Possessed’,  we had a scene in which he came up behind me and undid a string of pearls I was wearing. The string of pearls dropped to the floor. Fade to black, and use your imagination.

Clark was all man. I’ve been asked many times about him and what it was that was so attractive about him. I can tell you, and I can tell you in one word if you won’t be too shocked:

Balls! Clark Gable had balls.

There were people who said we were having an affair. Well, they could say what they wanted, but the source of their information wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Clark. We weren’t that kind of people. Our relationship was private, between us, and I never saw any witnesses in the bedroom.”

 Crawford is Marion Martin, a disillusioned small town factory worker looking for something better. After a chance meeting with Wallace Stewart (Skeets Gallagher), a drunk Park Avenue man on a train, she heads to New York to fulfill her dreams. He advises her to meet a rich man or she’ll never get along in the city. She takes his advice to heart and when two of Stewart’s friends show up, she squeezes her way into meeting them. Gable appears about fifteen minutes in the film as Mark Whitney, a distinguished attorney. He takes a shining to her almost immediately, despite the fact that she admits to him that she is only after his money. A few years pass and she is Mark’s “kept” lover, taking on all the responsibilities of a wife but without a ring. She has smoothed her rough edges and is now sophisticated and elegant. But Mark is hesitant to marry her because he already went through a nasty divorce some years prior and doesn’t want another scandal while he is trying to enter politics. She becomes ashamed to be his mistress and when she realizes that she is standing in his way of becoming governor, she unselfishly leaves him, letting him believe that she isn’t in love with him anymore.

The picture is all Joan’s, and follows in a formula that would be a pattern for her most of the 1930’s: poor “shopgirl” makes good! But even though the formula became redundant, she plays it well. Even in black and white, one can see her blue eyes shining as the poor girl in the dirty small town and as the refined New York mistress.

Clark is devilishy handsome here, even without his mustache yet. He commands every scene he is in and oozes sex appeal out of every pore. No, this isn’t a rough, he-man type that throws women around, but there is still something rugged and yet suave at the same time about him in tailored suits in a place of authority.

The scene towards the end when Joan tells him she never loved him and that she is going to marry her old beau from back home has echoes to me from Gone with the Wind–Clark’s hurt tone is the same as his heart breaks; the anger that covers up the sadness.

Possessed is available on DVD and see over 50 pictures from the film in the gallery.