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Movie of the Week: Across the Wide Missouri (1951)
This week, Clark is roughin’ it as a 1800’s cowboy in Across the Wide Missouri. Clark is Flint Mitchell, a fur trapper from Kentucky leading a group of French and Scottish trappers through the rugged West in the 1820’s. Battling Blackfoot Indians all the way, especially their chief Ironshirt (Ricardo Montalban), he finds love with an Indian chief’s granddaughter (portrayed by Mexican actress Maria Elena Marques). When Clark was in New York City for a publicity tour for the film, he was interviewed by famed Los Angeles Times reporter Joe Hyams, who asked him about the film: “It stinks,” [Clark] said, “and you can quote me on that.” Indeed…
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Gossip Friday: Carole Out, Jean In
From October 1936: Carole Lombard in a screen romance with Clark Gable–would that spell box office? I am asking you. Either one of these two alone is sufficient to lure the customers into the theater, but the two of them together would bring in enough shekels to pay the rent and keep the wolf far, far away. That is why, come next year, Carole will be co-starred with Clark in “Saratoga.” Yes, I know it was intended for Joan Crawford, but I am told there are other plans for La Crawford. When Carole finishes “Morning, Noon and Night” for Paramount she’ll move to Metro for this one picture. And that…
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Movie of the Week: Saratoga (1937)
This week is Jean Harlow’s final film, Saratoga (1937). Clark Gable is Duke Bradley, a bookie who acquires the deed to the Brookdale horse ranch because the owner, Mr. Clayton (Jonathan Hale) owes him a lot of money. When Clayton dies, his daughter Carol (Harlow), who dislikes Bradley, is determined to get the horse ranch back in the family by winning horse races to pay Bradley back. Meanwhile, Bradley tries to bait Carol’s rich fiancée (Walter Pidgeon) to place bets with him. This film is infamous for being Jean’s final film. She died quite suddenly of renal failure when the film was 90% complete. After collapsing on set while filming…
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Gossip Friday: Helping a Friend
From February 1937: Clark Gable’s influenza attack has helped indirectly to furnish Myrna Loy’s new home. The two co-stars of “Parnell” haven’t worked for a week, because Clark wasn’t well enough to appear on the set. So Myrna used the time to go shopping. Her chief purchases were pots and pans for the house she is building with her husband, producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr.
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Movie of the Week: China Seas (1935)
This week’s film is Clark Gable the disgruntled sea captain and Jean Harlow the hooker he tried to leave behind in China Seas. Gable is Alan Gaskell, a roguish captain of a ship that sails between Hong Kong and Shanghai. It’s established pretty early on that he’s been having some adult fun ashore with a Shanghai harlot, Dolly, who goes by the name China Doll (Harlow). So imagine his surprise when setting his ship off to sea that she is on board as a passenger! She confesses she is madly in love with him; he is weary of her and rejects her advances. She is green with jealousy upon the…
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Gossip Friday: Bosom Pals
From 1952: Word has it that the lobby of London’s Savoy Hotel this summer looked like the Beverly Hills and the Bel Air hotels combined. Old home week all the time. Errol Flynn and Clark Gable became practically bosom pals overseas. They had never really had time to get to know each other in Hollywood. Errol rented a London town house for his picture sojourn there and Gable was a frequent “Man Who Came to Dinner.”
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{Photos} Boom Town (1940)
Here’s some photos from this week’s Movie of the Week, Boom Town (1940). With a cast consisting of Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr, the portraits are of course wonderful. There’s some behind-the-scenes photos I found in a fan magazine of Clark and Spencer filming their first scene together, ending up face first in the mud! Clark Gable with a baby and small child is always worth the price of admission in my book. Saving the best for last, the funniest screenshots from this film are from Clark’s fist fight with Spencer (well Clark and Spencer’s stunt double):
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Movie of the Week: Boom Town (1940)
This week’s movie is Boom Town (1940). Gable is “Big John” McMasters and Tracy is “Square John” Sand, or as Big John calls him right from the beginning, “Shorty”. They are two wildcatters out west trying to strike oil. They pool their money and smarts and soon hit it big. Putting a snag in their festivities is the arrival of Elizabeth or “Betsy” (Claudette Colbert), Shorty’s sweetheart from back home. She arrives to see him but falls in love with Big John instead, and they are married the night they met. A year passes and when Shorty thinks that Big John is not treating Betsy right, the two men come…
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Gossip Friday: The Turkey Star
From August 1931: The hunt for male stars–always a desperate one in Hollywood, is on with added fervor this season. if rival producers do not find a male star with sufficient sex appeal to offset the charms of Clark Gable, one studio will have captured the best bet since Valentino and the box office record of that lot will soar. From present indications Clark Gable is the man of the moment. I haven’t heard any of the masculine element tearing their heats out over him–but how the women do talk! A local wit has named him the “Turkey” star–because the women go Gable-Gable-Gable all day. A still more potent indication…
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Movie of the Week: Wife vs. Secretary (1936)
This week, Clark’s torn between Jean Harlow and Myrna Loy (poor guy) in Wife vs. Secretary. Clark is the dashing editor-in-chief of a magazine in this one. Myrna is his delightful wife, who seems to spend her days lounging around their spacious two-story New York apartment in glamorous gowns, throwing lavish parties, assisted by a full-time cook, maid, driver and butler. No kids underfoot either. Ah, to be a rich 1930’s housewife! Jean is Clark’s loyal secretary, who says how high when he says jump. A youthful Jimmy Stewart is Jean’s neglected fiancé, who is constantly snubbed by Jean’s work commitments and is growing quite tired of it. Despite the…