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Gossip Friday: Not a Lawyer
From May 1933: It looks as if Clark Gable might be doing a portrayal of a lawyer some time soon. And who hasn’t? “Penthouse,” a story by Arthur Somers Roche, has been purchased by MGM, and there is a possibility that Gable may be elected for the title role, which is that of a hero who goes socially berserk by deciding to become a criminal instead of a corporation lawyer. That is, the girl who is affianced to him considers him to be berserking and she regards a criminal attorney as out of their social realm. There are two strong feminine roles in the picture, for the hero indulges a…
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Gossip Friday: Ode to The Queen
From October 1938: To her husband she’s Minnie. To her public she is Myrna Loy, but to Clark Gable, she is The Queen. They first met during the making of “Night Flight.” That was five years ago and she wasn’t a star then, but Gabe says she has not changed a whit since. They were together also in “Manhattan Melodrama,” “Wife vs. Secretary,” “Parnell,” “Men in White,” and “Test Pilot.” They are at it again in “Too Hot to Handle,” which is flashed on the screen at theatres [soon]. “At first I was a little afraid of her,” Gable admitted. “I thought she was mysterious but I soon learned tha…
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Gossip Friday: Stolen Gloves
From November 1939: Clark Gable and Myrna Loy regularly have their driving gloves purloined by souvenir seekers. Both of these stars favor open motor cars and they seem unable to break themselves of the habit of leaving their gloves on the seats of their cars. The gloves seldom are there when they come back.
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Gossip Friday: Over and Under Exposed
From July 1938: As a newsreel cameraman, Clark Gable for a day was convinced he was a flop. For his role as a newsreel cameraman in “Too Hot to Handle,” Gable was called upon to cling to the top of a racing ambulance with his camera equipment while filming Myrna Lot trapped in a crashed burning plane. While Hal Rosson’s cameras were filming Gable and the burning plane on MGM’s Sixty Acres, Gable also was making an actual newsreel of Miss Loy and the blazing plane to be shown on the screen of his boss’ projection room. When Gable returned to the set the next day, he received a regulation…
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Happy 120th Birthday, Clark Gable
Clark Gable was born 120 years ago today, on February 1, 1901. The only child of William and Adeline Gable, he was born at home in their small duplex in Cadiz, Ohio, at 5:30am after 15 hours of labor. He weighed 10 and a half pounds! You can view our posts about Clark Gable’s birthday over the years here. These pictures of Clark celebrating with a large cake with a crown on it are widely circulated. Here’s the deal on that particular birthday party in 1938: They halted shooting on Stage 12 at MGM yesterday afternoon to celebrate Clark Gable’s birthday. Since the Chicago Tribune News Syndicate named him…
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Movie of the Week: Parnell (1937)
This week, Clark Gable is a mutton-chopped Irish politician in love with married Myrna Loy in Parnell. In this historical melodrama, Gable is Charles Parnell, an 1880’s Irish politician dubbed “The Uncrowned King of Ireland” for fighting for Irish freedom from British rule. The British trump up false charges against him to try and keep his efforts down but are unsuccessful. But then Parnell falls in love with Katie O’Shea (Loy), the estranged wife of a British Parliament member. When her husband finds out, he files for divorce and names Parnell as co-respondent, resulting in political and social ruin for Parnell. Just as he begins to fight back for his…
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{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…
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Movie of the Week: Test Pilot (1938)
This week, it’s Clark Gable as a fearless test pilot, Myrna Loy as the woman he loves and Spencer Tracy as his best buddy in Test Pilot (1938). Clark is Jim Lane, a boozing, womanizing army test pilot who walks to the beat of his own drummer. On one trip, his plane starts leaking gas and he lands on the field of a Kansas farm, where Ann Barton (Loy) lives with her parents. Their sparring turns to mutual attraction soon after and by the time Jim’s best friend and mechanic, Gunner Morris (Tracy) arrives to help fix the plane, they are in love. When Jim brings the plane home to…
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Movie of the Week: Men in White (1934)
This week, Clark Gable is a workaholic intern at a hospital and Myrna Loy is his neglected fiance in Men in White. Clark is George Ferguson, a medical intern at a prestigious New York hospital. He is serious about his profession and works night and day. During this time period, medical interns and nurses even lived at the hospital, having little time for social lives. Myrna Loy is his heiress fiance, Laura, who flits around being frustrated that he has no time for her. (I’m not quite sure how they even found time to date and get engaged when he’s seemingly always working?) She wants him to open up his…
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Movie of the Week: Too Hot to Handle (1938)
This week, Clark Gable is a rogue newsreel reporter and Myrna Loy is a determined aviatrix in Too Hot to Handle (1938). This film is an interesting look behind the scenes at the now-extinct-thanks-to-television-and-internet newsreel business. Gable is Chris Hunter, a newsreel cameraman who is always in the middle of the action. Walter Pidgeon is Bill Dennis, a rival newsreel cameraman who is constantly trying to out-scoop Chris. Both of them are bored in Shanghai since they can’t get anywhere near the action of the Chinese-Japanese war. When his boss (Walter Connolly) starts demanding action shots of the war, Chris obliges by making up fake shots using toy airplanes…
