Caïn et 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.

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 work very well together. Along with an all-star cast, CAIN AND MABEL is fast moving wise-cracking fun! The musical numbers are outrageous in presentation, especially the "I'll Sing You A Thousand Love Songs" number, which required building the largest soundstage in Hollywood (Burbank actually), Stage #7 on the Warner lot. It's not GONE WITH THE WIND, but it doesn't try to be; it's just fun.

Cain and Mabel (1936)

** (out of 4)

Extremely flat comedy-musical about a heavyweight boxer (Clark Gable) and a Broadway star (Marion Davies) who hate one another but agree to a "relationship" to boost their career. The publicity of their relationship gets more people to come watch their business but soon the two enemies start to really fall in love, which just sets off more problems. It's rather amazing that at this point in her career Davies was still getting top-billing and even over Gable who had won an Oscar two years earlier and was one of the biggest box-office draws in the world. With that said, the two might be legends but there isn't a pinch of chemistry between the two and the screenplay is do downright lame that you wish it would end shortly after it started. The screenplay is a real mess as the story is so predictable that you can't help but feel bored but what's even worse is that the "story" of the two enemies dating doesn't happen until nearly the 50-minute mark. Everything leading up to the story starting are a bunch of scenes that really don't add up to anything including the incredibly bland opening sequence where Davies is a waitress who gets fired and then accidentally ends up in the Broadway show. What was the point of this? I'm going to guess that someone wanted more comedy sequences so this was thrown in but not a single frame of it is funny. There are a lot of comic moments in the film but sadly the majority of them fall flat on their face. The only saving grace are a couple good one-liners from the supporting players like Allen Jenkins and Roscoe Karns. Gable, as you'd expect, delivers a pretty good performance as he has no trouble pulling off the tough boxer role. Davies, on the other hand, is miscast and never fits the role. The comedy type here just isn't her thing so she kills the majority of the jokes and even worse is that the entire film is built around here character and she simply can't carry things. Her and Gable seem like brothers and sisters and never really seem comfortable with one another. Another head-scratcher is that there are some gigantic musical numbers that are downright horrid and stop the film in its tracks. I'm really not sure what the point of all of these were unless, again, someone wanted to show her off as a singer. Yeah, it seems someone had a boyfriend who really forced this film all around.

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.