Cain e Mabel

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.

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.

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.