Tonight's movie was "Hold Your Man" (1933), another Pre-Code gem with the star team of Clark Gable and the great Jean Harlow. It feels like two movies in one, because it begins as a sort of screwball crime caper. Street thief Gable is on the run after scamming a man on a fake diamond ring. The cops are chasing him, so he runs into a nearby apartment building and begins trying doorknobs, looking for a place to hide. Of course (wouldn't you know it) the only door that's unlocked is Harlow's. She is taking a bath but doesn't seem too perturbed by the intrusion. Perhaps because the intruder is Clark Gable, haha. She agrees to hide him, though she doesn't know him, and thus the Hijinx Begin, as well as the Pre-Code Suggestive Repartee. Nobody can deliver it like these two, and even if you don't care for old movies you've still gotta see Jean Harlow at least once to see how great she was, and why she is still revered as one of the great Hollywood Stars, even though she died 80 years ago at age 26.
At any rate, the first 45 minutes of the film breeze along in this fashion, and by now Gable and his street criminal partner have conned Harlow into helping them with their schemes. She is seeing a wealthy married man, and they plan to blackmail him by "catching him in the act". However, Clark Gable can't go through with the scheme. He realizes he is in love with Jean Harlow and winds up punching the other man instead of blackmailing him. But the man dies. Now he has to go on the run. Harlow is caught and charged as an accessory, and this sets up the second half of the film, which takes place entirely in a women's reformatory. This half of the film is pure melodrama, with Harlow living in a dormitory with other convicted young women, each with her own story, and so many sub-themes play out here. Ultimately, though, all the women pull together to hatch a scheme to reunite Harlow with Clark Gable, who is still on the lam. During the Easter holiday, they sneak him in, and - lo and behold! - there is a Preacher on the grounds who is visiting his daughter. Gable decides to marry Harlow then and there. It's treacherous going, however, because the reformatory matrons have discovered his presence. Will the marriage ceremony be completed before Gable is captured and taken away to prison?
I can't tell ya, because I don't wanna spoil the ending. Keep in mind that this is Golden Age Hollywood, though, and you can get a general idea. :):)
Also, I've only given you the barest outline of the story, which is not only filled with little developments throughout, but is also populated with many, many great characters, each with their own tale to tell. For instance, one of the young ladies in the reformatory is a communist who goes off on political tirades at the drop of a hat. Interestingly, as the film was released in 1933, this is only a mere 16 years after the Russian Revolution, and so communism is a fairly new topic at that time. In the movie, no one wants to hear her speeches, though her fellow dorm mates love her anyway. So that's the kind of script you got back then, especially in pre-code days, that not only featured slam-bang-but-subtle sexual innuendo, delivered with class and style, but also political and philosophical themes.
And in True Hollywood Fashion, at least back when Hollywood Was Really Hollywood (pre-Weinstein, we might call it), back in those days the High Road was always taken. And so Romance, Justice and Morality always win out.
I am gonna seek out the rest of the Gable/Harlow films. I think they made six together. I've seen "Red Dust" (reported on recently) and now "Hold Your Man", and I'll try to get others from the Libe. It's October and I'm supposed to be watching Horror Movies - and you can be certain that I will, so don't get any ideas - but I'll make exceptions for Gable and Harlow at any time. ////
No other news today. Just reading my books, and I can't believe what happened to Edward Van Halen's life between the years of 1998 and 2006. I am reading the EVH biography and as I've said, it's a wonder he's alive. Ed is a very unusual dude, but we love him all the more for it and especially since he turned his life around after 2007 and became a new man. What a story. You could say that Ed is "touched", as many of Genius are.....
Elizabeth, are you still in Washington? I am gonna need one of those wall-sized electronic maps, like they have in basement rooms in city transit departments, where they can keep track of trains and subways and such. But if you are still there, I hope you are having a blast. :):)
I saw James' post, too, and......of course I've gotta disagree.
I mean, it is Written In Stone and Decreed In The Heavens that Disneyland (or Disney World for the Eastern US Folks) is "The Happiest Place On Earth".
Now, I am sure that Waffle House, if I have the name right, is a very happy place too.
But........my God man!
Okay, maybe if they put a Waffle House inside Disneyland.......but that's as far as I am willing to go.
See you in the morning. :):)
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