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Movie of the Week: To Please a Lady (1950)
This week’s movie is To Please a Lady (1950). Clark Gable is Mike Brannon, a decorated war hero and a ruthless race car driver who will do anything to win. Stanwyck is feisty Regina “Reggie” Forbes, who writes a no-holds-barred weekly syndicated newspaper column. She sets her sights to rip apart Brannon after he runs another racer off the track into a fatal crash. She confronts him about the crash following a race and is put off by his blasé attitude. Furious by his indifference, she writes a scathing column about how heartless he is. After that, Brannon is suspended from auto racing and can’t find a job racing anywhere;…
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Gossip Friday: Not a Diva
From October 1936: Clark Gable is in the Metro commissary eating lunch. He sits at the long table reserved for the writers and the directors. There is only one other actor, Spencer Tracy, who ever sits at this table and mingles with the boys. Seldom do the tourists glimpse the stars dining in the Metro commissary. Robert Taylor may be seen there, but I have never seen Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, William Powell, etc. Gable, finishing his lunch, gets up and walks to the sound stage where he is working. This particular day he happens to be working in the flicker “Love on the Run.” On the way to the…
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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…
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Gossip Friday: Back from the Dead
From March 1937: When Clark Gable was ordered home to bed with a cold, he left protesting that he could finish out the day all right. But he scarcely had left the studio before word was all over the colony that he had collapsed on the set. I was at the Brown Derby about 5 o’clock (asking an intern for something to cure a cold) and there received the news of Mr. Gable’s supposed collapse, and even considerable detail about what he said and who carried him out to an automobile. All false, of course, but it shows what happens. By 8 o’clock the rumor-mongers had slain Mr. Gable, and…
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{Photos} Dancing Lady (1933)
This week’s Movie of the Week, Dancing Lady, being the big all-star MGM musical that is was, had quite the plethora of publicity photos taken for it. There are some lovely shots of Clark Gable and Joan Crawford together: Most of the publicity shots are of Joan alone. There’s a whole set of her in this beaded dress, and they are beautiful: But then there are several of these of her half-naked in this odd outfit: And a bunch of her in the gym, even though it’s only a brief scene: This one is cute: Clark and Joan were friendly on set, not as friendly as they had been in…
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Movie of the Week: Dancing Lady (1933)
This week, Clark Gable’s a grumpy Broadway director in Dancing Lady. Clark made no qualms about which film of his was his least favorite out of all of them–this one. In 1957, he recalled, “MGM assigned me to do a bad part in Dancing Lady with Joan Crawford—a picture I didn’t like. But as bad as the part was, it wasn’t as bad as my health…I’d lost a lot of weight. They’d been working me hard and I was tired. I told myself, ‘If I have a few operations, that will take care of my health and the part in Dancing Lady too.’ I had my appendix and tonsils out,…
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Gossip Friday: Police Dog Pup?
From October 1931: Clark Gable hadn’t been on the lot for more than a few months before they named a salad after him on the lunchroom menu–avocado, lettuce, grapefruit, cottage cheese. he is that popular. Gable is of rough-hewn timber. Men like him. And he has those dimples for the ladies. Shaggy brows. Unruly hair. The kind of gray eyes you’d hate to meet if he were mad. Under it all is an elfish charm, bordering upon the naivete. Shy, sort of. A bit fierce. Yet warm as blazes when you know him. Like a police dog pup.
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{Photos} Night Nurse (1931)
For this week’s Movie of the Week, I don’t have any behind the scenes photos, as Clark Gable was just the lowly devious chauffeur, so was not in a position to command any behind the scenes interest. But here are some screenshots of a young and burly Clark: I do find it rather funny that the first time this evil chauffeur appears onscreen he is wearing polka dot pajamas! Poor Barbara. Knocked out cold. By a man in polka dot pajamas and a silk dragon robe no less! The chauffeur uniform isn’t exactly flattering, but look how young and chiseled he looks here, with his hair flopping onto his face.…
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Movie of the Week: Night Nurse (1931)
As I said yesterday, for the next year I will be featuring a movie a week (some lumped together for time’s sake). I’ll be doing a write-up of each film (yes, I am re-watching all these) and posting photos and trivia. These posts will not be in chronological order, so for no particular reason other than the fact that I recently re-watched it, I bring you Night Nurse! Night Nurse is a rather racy pre-code film. You’ve got every pre-code box checked: Half naked girls, men throwing women around, sexual innuendo, heck you even got children being neglected and murdered. What starts out as the story of poor, orphaned and…
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We’re 9!
This website is 9 years old today! Wow that is hard to believe. When I started I was hand-coding with an old laptop and a paperback copy of “Website Building for Dummies.” 2019 will be a big deal as it is the 10th anniversary of this website, not to mention the 80th anniversary of Gone with the Wind! Starting this week and running until the week of July 1, 2019, we will be featuring a “Movie of the Week”–photos, trivia, etc about one movie a week. Yes, I do realize that there are more films than weeks, so some of the lesser roles will be combined. They will not be…