Clark Gable on DVD
Burbank, California—A real movie star, Clark Gable, is the latest to be featured in a Signature Collection from the DVD masters at Warner Bros. The anthology—six movies and extras for $60—premieres on June 20.
The studio doesn't own the rights to every Clark Gable picture and among the missing are his snazzy blockbuster opposite Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night, and his final picture, The Misfits co-starring Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. Both are available separately on DVD.
Excluding Mr. Gable's best known role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, the Warner Bros. set offers a broad spectrum of the physically commanding actor's work. Featured are entries from his many movies with Joan Crawford (Dancing Lady), Jean Harlow (China Seas) and Myrna Loy (Wife Versus Secretary). The roguish hunk melts nearly every woman's heart.
Also included are two of Mr. Gable's pairings with Spencer Tracy: the musical-dramatic spectacle San Francisco, with Jeanette MacDonald, which climaxes in an explosive recreation of the temblor that devastated the title city 100 years ago, and the Texas-based oil epic Boom Town co-starring Miss Colbert and Hedy Lamarr. According to Warner Bros., it was the biggest moneymaker at the box office in 1940.
One of his finest performances, as Victor in director John Ford's riveting African jungle drama Mogambo, shows why he was among Hollywood's most enduring stars. The 1953 picture, a remake of the smoldering Red Dust from 21 years earlier that also starred Mr. Gable, co-stars Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly as the women who compete for his affections. Towering Mr. Gable, over fifty when he made it, still had that mischievous flicker in his eye. He could turn it on like that and, in Mogambo, he definitely did.
On the San Francisco disc, actor Liam Neeson hosts a serviceable Turner cable documentary, under 60 minutes long, best watched after the movies. Clearly an admirer, Mr. Neeson guides the viewer through Clark Gable's wild life of guns, alcohol, and women and pays tribute to a great actor. Among the highlights: interviews with Carroll Baker (looking good), Mr. Gable's unacknowledged daughter by his Call of the Wild co-star, Loretta Young, and his son, John Clark Gable.
Clark Gable's legendary bravado lives in the documentary's snippets with the late Robert Stack, who remembers good times on the Gable ranch in the San Fernando Valley, where the star and his true love, actress Carole Lombard, romped and hunted ducks with a Remington 12-gauge shotgun.
As Mr. Neeson points out, Clark Gable was perceived in his day as the so-called common man. In an age of movies made for the lowest common denominator, he still shines.
Correction
A couple of alert readers, Alan and Gary, corrected my mistake in last week's column that composer Burt Bacharach wrote the theme from Valley of the Dolls. It only seemed that way after listening to many Dionne Warwick-Burt Bacharach collaborations and the melody sounds like Mr. Bacharach could have written it. I was way off: the popular tune was written by composer and conductor Andre Previn and his wife, Dory. The column will be corrected in the near future.
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RELATED LINKS
• Clark Gable - The Signature Collection on DVD
• Valley of the Dolls: The Music
The studio doesn't own the rights to every Clark Gable picture and among the missing are his snazzy blockbuster opposite Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night, and his final picture, The Misfits co-starring Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. Both are available separately on DVD.
Excluding Mr. Gable's best known role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, the Warner Bros. set offers a broad spectrum of the physically commanding actor's work. Featured are entries from his many movies with Joan Crawford (Dancing Lady), Jean Harlow (China Seas) and Myrna Loy (Wife Versus Secretary). The roguish hunk melts nearly every woman's heart.
Also included are two of Mr. Gable's pairings with Spencer Tracy: the musical-dramatic spectacle San Francisco, with Jeanette MacDonald, which climaxes in an explosive recreation of the temblor that devastated the title city 100 years ago, and the Texas-based oil epic Boom Town co-starring Miss Colbert and Hedy Lamarr. According to Warner Bros., it was the biggest moneymaker at the box office in 1940.
One of his finest performances, as Victor in director John Ford's riveting African jungle drama Mogambo, shows why he was among Hollywood's most enduring stars. The 1953 picture, a remake of the smoldering Red Dust from 21 years earlier that also starred Mr. Gable, co-stars Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly as the women who compete for his affections. Towering Mr. Gable, over fifty when he made it, still had that mischievous flicker in his eye. He could turn it on like that and, in Mogambo, he definitely did.
On the San Francisco disc, actor Liam Neeson hosts a serviceable Turner cable documentary, under 60 minutes long, best watched after the movies. Clearly an admirer, Mr. Neeson guides the viewer through Clark Gable's wild life of guns, alcohol, and women and pays tribute to a great actor. Among the highlights: interviews with Carroll Baker (looking good), Mr. Gable's unacknowledged daughter by his Call of the Wild co-star, Loretta Young, and his son, John Clark Gable.
Clark Gable's legendary bravado lives in the documentary's snippets with the late Robert Stack, who remembers good times on the Gable ranch in the San Fernando Valley, where the star and his true love, actress Carole Lombard, romped and hunted ducks with a Remington 12-gauge shotgun.
As Mr. Neeson points out, Clark Gable was perceived in his day as the so-called common man. In an age of movies made for the lowest common denominator, he still shines.
Correction
A couple of alert readers, Alan and Gary, corrected my mistake in last week's column that composer Burt Bacharach wrote the theme from Valley of the Dolls. It only seemed that way after listening to many Dionne Warwick-Burt Bacharach collaborations and the melody sounds like Mr. Bacharach could have written it. I was way off: the popular tune was written by composer and conductor Andre Previn and his wife, Dory. The column will be corrected in the near future.
$
RELATED LINKS
• Clark Gable - The Signature Collection on DVD
• Valley of the Dolls: The Music
