Loufoque et Cie

Everything about LOVE ON THE RUN is derivative. It seems like a reincarnation of Gable's role in "It Happened One Night" with him as a newspaper reporter passing himself off as a friend to runaway heiress JOAN CRAWFORD.

It's a bumpy ride most of the way, but there is one exceptionally funny scene in the palace at Fontainbleu involving a batty caretaker (DONALD MEEK) who thinks Gable and Crawford are ghosts and wants to give Gable a tip on his minuet style. He joins forces with Crawford for a charming bit of physical comedy--and then sadly disappears from much of the plot.

CLARK GABLE and JOAN CRAWFORD both exhibit comic ability, with Gable especially amusing in that minuet sequence. FRANCHOT TONE is Gable's rival reporter, always falling for Gable's con man tricks. But their material is thin--and rehashed from dozens of other films the two made either apart or together. Crawford is a harder, edgier version of the runaway gal Claudette Colbert played in "It Happened One Night".

Crawford looks at the peak of her photogenic charm and her chemistry with both stars is excellent.

But overall, it's just another screwball comedy about a runaway heiress and her vexation over being deceived by newspaper reporters.

This one is worth seeing for Crawford's delightful performance: she positively glows as the madcap heiress on the run. Despite the silly story and uneven performance from Gable (his legendary chemistry with Crawford is nonetheless in evidence), there is always the snappy dialogue (much of it written by John Lee Mahin of "Red Dust" and "Bombshell"), to keep the laughs coming. Crawford's then husband Franchot Tone plays Gable's fellow reporter. For anyone who wonders why she is called the ultimate movie star.

Love On The Run is yet another example of Louis B. Mayer trying to cash in on the success that eluded him when he 'punished' Clark Gable by sending him to Columbia Pictures for a minor comedy that turned out to be It Happened One Night. For the rest of the decade Hollywood saturated the American public with madcap heiress stories.

When you've got one of the leading players under contract to you however it's a bit easier. Gable is given a rival reporter to contend with in Love On The Run in the person of Joan Crawford's real life husband, Franchot Tone. These two room together, but are ready to do everything short of cutting each other's throats to scoop the other.

Two stories that they are both assigned to cover, heiress Joan Crawford's wedding to a prince, Ivan Lebedeff, and a trans-European flight by Baron Reginald Owen get mixed up together as Crawford gets cold feet and Owen turns out to be an international spy.

Gable and Crawford have done it all before, especially Gable. But I kind of feel sorry for Franchot Tone. If he wasn't in a dinner jacket in his MGM parts he was in a film like this, essentially playing the Ralph Bellamy role. It's a very one sided rivalry Gable and Tone have. It's like the Yankees and Red Sox of the last century with the Yankees constantly coming out on top. No wonder Tone left MGM to try for better acting roles. At MGM he showed what he could do in films like Mutiny on the Bounty and Three Comrades, but even these were in support of bigger stars.

There's some nice performances in the cast from Mona Barrie as Owen's wife, Donald Meek as a most eccentric caretaker and William Demarest as Gable's editor. But no new ground was broken here.

This movie is an obvious re-working of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and is a couple steps below it in quality. However, considering that Clark Gable, Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone do such a good job with the material, it's still an excellent film. That's because despite the familiarity of the material, the movie is so much fun to watch. The dialog is snappy and the pacing is great. And, despite the film being pretty predictable (as most were of the era), I didn't mind and felt myself being caught up in the movie.

Joan is a runaway bride and Gable is the cad pretending to help her but he's got a secret agenda. In the end, they are head-over-heels and the movie closes. Sounds familiar? Of course, but who cares--it's still lovely to watch.

Let me tell you why this movie is good: It shows that Joan Crawford and Clark Gable were great comic actors. There is no question that if I Love Lucy had been re-casted with Crawford and Gable as Lucy and Ricky, the results would have been hilarious. Also, Franchot Tone gives one the more hilarious performances as Gable's news reporter chum and rival. Tone would have played an extremely amusing Fred Mertz. The story is so upbeat and so amusing that it is virtually impossible to find anything about it to dislike. The story has snappy dialog, farcical plot, engaging characters and excellent cinematography. Any movie that features Crawford, Gable and Tone running around France and getting into all kinds of silly trouble is a movie that will entertain.