Cain and Mabel

Clark Gable and Marion Davies star in this romantic comedy that is like a time capsule from the thirties, filled with scads of depression era words and phrases.

Davies plays hoofer Mabel O'Dare, who gets her big break due to a misunderstanding. Gable plays boxer Larry Cain, who makes it to the heavyweight title. Because their careers are bringing in only so-so box office, PR guy Reilly (Roscoe Karns) cooks up a scheme to gain them more press: pretend they are an item. You can probably predict the rest of the plot, though you might not anticipate that the unlikely pair will bond over a pork chop.

This film is filled with one-liners. It also features some impressive stage productions that might have you looking for Busby Berkeley's name in the credits (it's not there). As for the singing and dancing, they hold up, especially when compared with the standards of the day.

Davies might not be Loy or Rogers or Harlow, but she does a creditable job, so the sponsorship of W. R. Hearst might not have been necessary for her to pull down this part.

Overall, this is an enjoyable film.

Louis B. Mayer got some good currency lending his number one star Clark Gable out to Columbia for It Happened One Night, to 20th Century Fox for Call of the Wild and now to Warner Brothers for Cain and Mabel. Sad to say though this one doesn't measure up to the other two.

It's a musical and musicals back in the day had some truly ridiculous plots, but this one kind of defied belief. Davies is a waitress who becomes a Broadway musical star, but after a while she yearns for the simple life. Gable as he describes himself is just a gas jockey with a good punch who becomes heavyweight champion.

They get thrown together for publicity's sake due to press agent Roscoe Karns. But of course they get serious for real as it always goes in these films.

For myself I could not swallow that these two people just want to get back to their former nonentity existences. I think that would have been a bit much for Thirties theater audiences as well.

Harry Warren and Al Dubin wrote two songs for the film, I'll Sing You a Thousand Love Songs and Coney Island, both of which get a semi Busby Berkeley treatment by dance director Bobby Connolly. My guess is that Berkeley probably passed on Cain and Mabel himself.

Look for good performances from Walter Catlett as the Broadway producer and the aforementioned Roscoe Karns. Robert Paige is in this also under the name David Carlyle and he takes care of the vocal department as Davies leading man and a pretty sappy one at that. Then again he's supposed to not get her.

Davies was very good as a light comedienne, but this material is too much for her.

Marion Davies and Clark Gable star together in a second film (they had co-starred in POLLY OF THE CIRCUS) as a Broadway star and a prize fighter who get tricked into a phony publicity romance to increase their box office draw.

Lots of snappy lines here as the two stars go through their paces, accompanied by a solid supporting cast. Davies gets doused with a bucket of water. She gets even, dousing Gable with water in a hallway. They trade insults

Davies gets to star is two lavish production numbers. The "Coney Island" romp is fun with Davies singing and dancing with Sammy White. The "Thousand Love Songs" number is built on a huge stage (biggest ever, the roof was raised 35 ft to accommodate the massive sets) and includes a human pipe organ, a Venetian canal, and even a white wedding, with Davies as the centerpiece in all of them. Davies cracked a rib during a dance number. Too bad the dance double is badly done. Still a lot of fun all round.

Ruth Donnelly, William Collier, Allen Jenkins, Pert Kelton, Robert Paige (billed as David Carlyle), Hobart Cavanaugh, Marie Prevost, E.E. Clive, Walter Catlett, and Roscoe Karns co-star. Sammy White is terrific in the "Coney Island" number, following up a great turn in SHOW BOAT with Irene Dunne. Jane Wyman is one of the chorus girls.

Davies would make only one more film after CAIN AND MABEL.

The picture seems to be put together from a lot of other pictures (musicals, boxing, backstage on Broadway, romance), but the pieces are of little interest in themselves and don't fit well together.

To me, the many quick jokes are the best part of the picture. Also good are a dance number (in which Marion Davies is clearly outmatched), Roscoe Karns as a PR man, and Allen Jenkins as Clark Gable's boxing trainer.

This isn't a great movie. It's a passable comedy, with some clever dialogue.

The real interest is Marion Davies. She is remembered, inaccurately, as the inspiration and model for Susan Alexander in *Citizen Kane*, which was evidently not altogether the case. (Yes, Kane was certainly based on William Randolph Hurst, Davies' financial backer and lover, but Susan A. was evidently based on several women in her situation in the 1930s, including at least one actual would-be opera singer.) As a result, it is assumed that she had no talent.

As this movie shows, that wasn't the case. No, she was not a Judy Garland, or a Jean Harlow, or a Ginger Rogers, or a Jeannette MacDonald. But she sang and danced quite decently, and she did a good job with light comedy. (She was evidently in over her head when Hurst put her in historical dramas.) Gable is definitely the best thing in this picture, and does a great job creating the all-man prizefighter, but Davies holds her own.

As do several of the supporting comedians, especially Walter Catlett and Roscoe Karns.

As I said, not a great movie, but a pleasant comedy, and one that makes a case for Davies.

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I watched this again tonight. One thing that struck me about it this time was that, in the very large musical number in the second half of the movie, which just goes on and on and on - it's supposed to be part of the musical Mabel O'Dare is appearing in - Davies is given almost nothing to do. She just stands on top of the elaborate stage set in an elaborate costume and smiles. I kept thinking: if this were a musical with any other musical star, they would have had her doing a lot more dancing, and probably some singing.