Por su patria y por su dama

John Stahl is famous for his tear-jerkers -often excellent- which make ladies (and gentlemen)cry rivers of tears.Remember "only yesterday" "back street" or his precedent movie "the magnificent obsession"."Parnell " is another matter because it deals with the life and times of an Irish hero who fights for his people right ,a real human being ,not,say, a Fanny Hurst's character.The problem is that Gable's and Loy's characters resemble Fanny Hurst's characters.The movie runs almost two hours and the screenplay is often muddled and confuse.Arguably,Stahl hesitates between a straight political biography -and he's not really good at that- and a full bore melodrama -Gable's and Loy's impossible love)and it satisfies neither the fans of the first genre nor the soap operas' buffs.The ending ,which is guaranteed to send the sensitive people tearing through a ton a kleenex,is pure Stahl Stuff. Best part comes from Edna May Oliver ,playing Loy's auntie.Otherwise,a disappointment and .. a bore.

The character of Parnell has interested me ever since I read James Joyce's Ulysses. I caught this movie by accident when channel surfing and landed on TCM, the source of many old movie nuggets. "Parnell" brings us some first rate actors, from Clark Gable to Myrna Loy, Edmund Gwyn and Donald Crisp. The viewer sees the main outline of the controversy involving Charles Parnell and Kitty O'Shea and its impact on the Irish Free State bill. The movie is dressed up in melodrama with violin music to the strains of Irish ballads. This cloying treatment, not unusual in Hollywood, does not detract from the story of a great man and the overlooked merits of this film. Parnell brought the Irish factions together to achieve a significant breakthrough in his time and might have saved many troubles. Parnell was the stuff of greatness and his story has been enshrined in history and literature. We know that the struggle for Ireland continued beyond his life; still, his story reverberates. This movie gives a sense of the tragedy but the poor sound and grainy film are a bit of an irritation. Also, the choice of Clark Gable, Hollywood's rugged icon of the 1930's, for the role of Parnell, falls flat. This is unfortunate because the movie is far from a disaster. Nevertheless, I would like to see a film with a more complete story, with more character development and background. It would tell the epic tale of Parnell's achievements and the forces that shaped Ireland in the late nineteenth century. The British movie industry does those period movies very well. This movie gives us a taste of that history.

I'm inclined to agree with the other reviewers who have commented on the fact that Gable was the wrong man for this particular job.It might bear some discussion as to why this might have been so.

Gable's screen persona was that of a "man's man."Hearty,frank,forthright,generous,and good natured.You'd find yourself enjoying his company,if only for an evening.(Let's not get into the fact that his camping trips were manufactured for screen publicity,or the rumors of his having been a hustler at the bus depot.We've all done things that we've been ashamed of.)But Gable was a broad actor;truly subtle work was beyond him.And nobility and sensitivity weren't with his range,either.He did what he could do very well.But not with this.

I keep thinking that Ronald Colman,Walter Pigeon,and Errol Flynn all would have been better choices.

I watched Parnell and waited for the awfulness. It never happened. What may have thrown off audiences in 1937 is that this is a period piece with absolutely no action and lots of speechifying. I thought Clark Gable was good and believable in his role as Charles Stewart Parnell, Anglo Irish politician and champion of Irish home rule, but this was not what people expected when they went to the movies to see a Clark Gable film. I guess it would have been like seeing Johnny Weismuller on a marquee in the 1930's, buying a ticket, and finding out he is portraying Abraham Lincoln instead of Tarzan or a Tarzan like figure. Thus many people say this film was a case of miscasting in the star role. I think it was more a case of unexpected casting.

The film keeps moving with Parnell dealing with one problem after another. There's even a murder trial thrown in at the middle of the movie! Then there is the married Kitty O'Shea (Myrna Loy) as Parnell's love interest.I thought the romance built slowly and credibly, and the charisma between Gable and Loy is electric. Kitty is unhappily married to Willy O'Shea, who is a complete weasel with high political aspirations. How many husbands are so unpleasant that their wives would rather pay their expensive bills to keep them away from home? That's what Willy kept threatening - pay this or that bill or I'll simply have to move back in with you. It does make you wonder why they married in the first place.

One strange thing that the film did was have Billie Burke, who was 53 at the time, playing Clara, Kitty's rather flaky sister, when she was old enough to be Myrna Loy's mother and only one year younger than Edna May Oliver who plays Clara and Kitty's aunt Ben. Billie Burke had been playing matronly characters with grown children for some time, so making her up and dressing her up to be somebody in her 20's who didn't have a real place in the plot other than being Oliver's comic foil just seemed a little weird.

As usual with biopics, this film got some facts about Parnell wrong. He actually toured the American south with his brother in the 1870's, not places associated with the Irish Americans in the 19th century such as Boston and New York. His affair with Kitty O'Shea was not that innocent. He actually fathered three of her four children while she was still married to her first husband. I can see how for the sake of dramatic license and the production code MGM would just make them guilty of holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes for years and years.

Great performances all around, good production values, a plot that kept my interest, and great supporting characters who often starred in MGM's lesser films of the time - thus I'd say this film is probably a 6.5/10, but I had to give a whole number rating so I rounded up to 7. It certainly held my interest and made me curious enough to want to learn more about this part of Irish history of which I know so little, thus I consider it a success, not a failure.

This is a movie with a considerable reputation--mostly bad. Some of that lack of regard is appropriately earned. However, there are good aspects to Parnell, too. It is definitely worth reconsideration after over 80 years since its initial release.

Was Clark Gable miscast? It is indisputable that there were better choices to play the inspiring, charismatic Irish champion whose great dream was for home rule for his country. But Gable was certainly capable of playing such a decent, noble character with honest conviction. He did so with considerable sincerity in The Misfits. And even though Gable made him seem more American than Irish, we should remember that Parnell's mother was a Yankee, and he always had a close connection with the United States.

Was the film misdirected? John M. Stahl was not in his usual element in tackling such a dense biographical/historical drama. But on the whole, Stahl obtained compelling performances from his actors, and the narrative moved at a pace that held the viewer's attention. MGM showered him with a stellar cast of players and its usual glossy production values. The end result is both entertaining and interesting.

Did the film's historical inaccuracies contribute to its lack of success? Other commentators have pointed out these flaws, and they need no repeating here. However, the biographical film genre by its very nature is often full of contrived fiction usually inserted to make such movies more likely to be commercially acceptable. Is Parnell any worse than MGM's Boys Town, Young Tom Edison/Edison The Man or Madame Curie In this regard? I think not.

In the end, Parnell (the movie) was probably doomed because Gable's fans could not accept him playing an obviously non-Gable part---much like what happened to Tyrone Power when he did Nightmare Alley, Cary Grant when he starred in None But The Lonely Heart, Spencer Tracy when he took on Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde and Robert Young when he appeared in They Won't Believe Me. Gable had a specific carefully created star image and was usually cast in roles that burnished and enhanced that image. Playing Charles Stewart Parnell--an almost God-like idealist, leader and patriot--definitely went beyond being cast against type. His fans were obviously disappointed, and the movie accordingly failed at the box office. Perhaps much of this result was caused by the unpleasant surprise of his fans seeing Gable trying to do such a role, rather than due to intrinsic faults in the film itself.

Take another look at Parnell and judge for yourself.