Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Fatal_When_Swallowed I just watched this schlockfest on Encore. In the 1970s I read the reviews panning it, and so I never saw it until tonight.Screenwriter Barry Sandler slapped together the script for "Gable and Lombard." If you don't recognize Sandler's name, he is also the writer of one of the most famously awful movies of all time, "Making Love." Although presenting a gay-themed love story was a bold move during the early Reagan years, it was severely criticized, not so much for its subject matter but for its cringe-inducing dialogue. The same holds true for "Gable and Lombard." Marvelous, vividly colorful cinematography is wasted on a poorly written and largely imaginary "biopic" of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. In the background, the incessant repetition of Michel Legrand's trite, syrupy theme grows tiresome very fast. As for the characters' screwball action, stretched out for 132 specious minutes, no better adjective than "trashy" applies. But Sandler saves the worst for last. Gable, resplendent in his Air Force uniform (he didn't actually enlist until AFTER Lombard's death) sits under a tent near the site where Lombard's plane has crashed, killing everybody on board. Gable says that he wants to go up to find her, but his fictional good buddy Ivan Cooper, who has been holding his hand for practically the entire film, convinces him to leave, saying, "She wouldn't want you to remember her that way." Obediently, Gable immediately leaves in a green sedan. The movie should have ended right there. However, in a REALLY classy move, Sandler decides to depict the grief-stricken Gable telling the driver a filthy anecdote, after which the camera pans out and the soppy Legrand theme rises for the last time over the credits. This moment left me stunned. Even if it were true--which by all accounts it wasn't--why leave us with an obscene final impression of Clark Gable? It's not merely preposterous, but beyond disgusting. It would have been more poignant to go with the truth, which is that Gable was prevented from hiking up with the search team to look for his wife, and remained in the area for days while the team dug through the wreckage. He is quoted as saying, "They never let me go to the crash site," and spent the rest of his life sending searchers back to look for Carole's wedding ring, which was never found. There is so much more that Sandler could have done with this story and didn't. Choosing scatology over dignity, he put a toilet-paper ribbon on his Technicolor package of lies about people who meant little more to him than cartoon characters, and flung it at the audience, flipping the bird in farewell.

sonny_1963 James Brolin and Jill Clayburgh pull it off as one of old Hollywood's most dashing couples.The ambiance of 1930s-1940s Hollywood almost steals the show, but Brolin, Clayburgh, a fine script and a beautiful score are the real wonders of this film. The title characters are believable and interesting to watch. Red Buttons also does a good job in a small role.We see how Gable and Lombard met and how they had to face all of the impediments that were trying to ruin their love affair. The film does not have a happy ending because it's based on fact. As a matter of fact, you will need some tissues when you watch the final scene. It's that moving.

VPaterno Struggling in the mid-seventies just before the blockbuster era settled in, Hollywood looked back to its history for material, and this was one of the results. Based on a pretty good book by Warren G. Harris, the problem with "Gable & Lombard" isn't so much the acting (Brolin does what he can in a no-win situation, and Clayburgh's halfway decent, though it's nearly impossible to suspend disbelief and believe she's Lombard), but the script. It's awful, and worse, historically inaccurate in so many ways (unlike the book).First of all, Clark and Carole initially met filming "No Man Of Her Own" when Gable was loaned to Paramount in late 1932, while Lombard was married to William Powell; they got along well on the set, but no sparks flew and from all accounts they didn't keep in touch.Second, Lombard was never a bigger star than Gable (although at the peak of her career, she was the highest-salaried star in the industry thanks to her shrewd business sense). Both elevated their rank in 1934, ironically through films at Columbia -- "It Happened One Night" for Clark, "Twentieth Century" for Carole. Her only film at MGM also came that year, but it wasn't with Gable; it was a gangster comedy called "The Gay Bride," sort of a thirties "Married To The Mob" (in fact, that phrase is actually used in the film). Carole always called it the worst film of her career (although, personally, I deem it far superior to her lone foray at Warners, "Fools For Scandal" in 1938).Third, and perhaps most inexcusable to me, was having Gable in uniform at the time of Carole's death in a 1942 plane crash returning from a war bond rally in her native Indiana. Lombard was far more interested in world affairs than Gable, and many believe Clark enlisted out of guilt for what had happened to his wife -- something that would have been far more poignant than what was shown on screen. (There's also been conjecture that Gable and Lana Turner, who were making "Somewhere I'll Find You," were having an affair at the time of Carole's death, and that Lombard decided to fly home because of her suspicions. Since Turner was alive in 1976, one can understand why the script didn't touch this issue.) All in all, a mediocre film about two personalities who deserve far better treatment, especially since both were, by all accounts, generally good people and acknowledged as such by those who worked with them. Lombard in particular deserves a decent biopic, as her timeless, iconoclastic qualities still resonate today.

Ben Burgraff (cariart) GABLE AND LOMBARD is the kind of film that Hollywood history buffs hate, but fans of love stories just eat up. In other words, the truth is often distorted or ignored, but the emotional core is dead-on.I won't dwell on the many mistakes, but two are glaring, and must be pointed out. While Carole Lombard was a truly gifted actress (particularly in comedies), she was never Hollywood's #1 star (Lombard never achieved the status of Shearer, Garbo, Davis, or Crawford); L.B. Mayer's 'ordering' rising star Gable to 'make nice' with her, so she'd agree to do a picture at Metro with him is pure hokum. Actors had virtually no say in 'loan outs' in the 1930s; studios made all the decisions, based on maximizing their profits, and controlling their stars. A case in point was Gable's participation in Columbia's IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. Had he been given the opportunity, he'd have refused to go (he considered it a 'step backward', and it was, in fact, done as punishment against him, on MGM's part), and he would have never have won his only Academy Award! The other major gaffe is showing Gable as an AAF officer at the time of Lombard's death. He didn't enlist until after she'd died, partially because of the guilt he felt over his lack of involvement in the war effort, a cause Lombard had died supporting. While Brolin, as Gable, looks terrific in uniform, it just wasn't the truth.The effectiveness of a story like this relies heavily on the actors portraying the stars, and GABLE AND LOMBARD offers an interesting combination. Despite David Janssen's heavy lobbying for the role of Clark Gable (he always felt he was, actually, Gable's son, and he did, in fact, share many of the actor's physical and vocal qualities), the producers felt that, at 46, he was too old for the role, and went, instead, with 36-year-old James Brolin. Brolin, best-known for his stint in the hit TV series, 'Marcus Welby, M.D.' (and later, in another series, 'Hotel'), was an actor who had all the right 'tools', but never quite achieved film stardom. Nearly cast as Roger Moore's replacement as James Bond (despite a terrific screen test, producer Cubby Broccoli decided to stick with United Kingdom actors), Brolin, with a mustache, looked eerily like Gable during the actor's peak years, and could mimic the actor's vocal inflections and physical mannerisms very effectively. The end result of his mimicry, however, was a Gable who lacked depth, and his performance frequently seemed more a caricature than a portrayal.Jill Clayburgh, as Carole Lombard, faced a different problem. The 32-year-old actress (who would achieve stardom the following year, in SILVER STREAK), had a very well-written role, which was, in fact, quite close to the actress' actual personality (big-hearted yet at times acerbic, Lombard was known for her salty humor and frequent use of four-letter words, in stark contrast with her classic beauty). Clayburgh, however, with her broad features, looked nothing like Carole Lombard. (If you're unfamiliar with Lombard's 'look', her closest contemporary counterpart is Michelle Pfeiffer.) Clayburgh plays the role very well, but, knowing this, I could never 'suspend disbelief' enough to accept her as Lombard. However, as I said at the beginning, if you are hooked by true love stories (and aren't familiar with the 'real' Carole Lombard), GABLE AND LOMBARD has all the elements you can ask for; antagonism turning to attraction and then 'forbidden' passion, nearly insurmountable obstacles blocking happiness, eventual triumph, then a heartbreaking tragedy that would ultimately immortalize the lovers. Gable 'carried a torch' for his lost love until his death, in 1960, and GABLE AND LOMBARD gives ample evidence of her impact on his life.The film is a flawed, but moving testament to their love.