IDIOT'S DELIGHT (MGM 1939) Warner Archive Collection

Clark Gable’s movie career reached its zenith in 1939 and although fans, and arguably, the star himself had no way of knowing it, at the end of this golden epoch neither the man nor his tenure in Hollywood would ever be the same again. Two things prevented Gable from continuing on as he had – the Teflon-coated sun God of the MGM backlot. The first, was undoubtedly the war, forever to change the cinema landscape for many a star, but particularly to impact the adventuresome and frothy escapist fantasies to take place in exotic locales, by which Gable’s movie career had largely been shaped. The second, and arguably, more destructive event – at least where Clark was concerned, would occur 3-yrs. later when, while on a return trip from selling war bonds, Gable’s wife of barely nine months, screen madcap, Carol Lombard, perished in a horrific plane crash. When the U.S. entered WWII at the end of 1941, Lombard vowed to do her part for the war effort, attending numerous war bond rallies and becoming a major contributor to the war relief fund. On this fateful occasion, she was travelling home with her mother, Bess Peters, and close personal friend of the family, and Gable’s press agent, Otto Winkler. The trio ought to have returned from Indiana by train. However, Lombard anxious to expedite their trip, opted instead to fly.  Neither Bess nor Winkler were keen on the idea. But they chose to flip a coin to decide their fate. Regrettably, Lombard won the toss. On Jan. 16, 1942, their flight smashed into Potosi Mountain, killing everyone on board, including 15 U.S. Army soldiers. The news shocked Hollywood and sent filmdom’s reigning monarch into a devastating emotional tailspin from which he was to eventually emerge, only to enlist in the army, telling a friend, “I’m going in and I don’t give a damn if I ever come back!”

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Robert E. Sherwood (who also wrote the screenplay), director, Clarence Brown's Idiot's Delight (1939) represents something of the end of the line for the Clark Gable who came to emblemize a certain rugged masculinity, carefully crafted by the studio, but imbued with Gable’s own inimitable smugness, never to take all the testosterone chest-thumping too seriously. It is interesting to look back on Gable’s pre-war movies, Gone with the Wind (1939) included, as he exudes a sort of proficient manliness that, in fact, is simply Gable being Gable, and, with the added appeal of slyly winking at the camera, and his fans, as if to suggest, ‘Don’t be fooled, folks…none of this is real.’ As though to punctuate the point, in Idiot’s Delight Gable breaks with a tradition usually afforded ‘he-men’ of the silver screen. He sings and dances, the irrepressibly charming, ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ – and, predictably, manages to make even this schlepping of the light fantastic seem sexy as hell, despite his blonde chorines, carrying him out in high fashion, only to lose their grip and dump him in a heap on the floor. It is a superbly joyous moment – one, that charmed the critics but simultaneously outraged his most ardent fans who considered him ‘above’ such nonsense. As a matter of record, Gable would break another taboo for screen hunks this same year, very reluctantly at the behest of director, Victor Fleming, whom he implicitly respected - crying as a distraught Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind.

On the whole, Idiot’s Delight is a rather tepid anti-war melodrama/comedy to pit MGM's fast-fading 'queen of the lot,' Norma Shearer against Gable’s virility. The two make for an engaging couple. At the time of its release, Shearer was decidedly on the downswing at the studio. After the death of her beloved husband, MGM VP - Irving Thalberg, Norma lost the one man whom she trusted implicitly with her future prospects. Under Thalberg’s auspices, Shearer’s career had truly blossomed at the studio. 1939 would mark Norma’s best work in another MGM picture – The Women, for George Cukor. So, comparatively speaking, Idiot’s Delight seemed like a hand-me-down or poor cousin for both star’s whose year-end best work had been done elsewhere. Not so. Idiot’s Delight is…well…delightful, thanks to Gable and Shearer, and Edward Arnold in a support part. Gable is Harry Van, a Vaudevillian who returns from WWI a hero, only to discover his soldier's status means he is at liberty in the outside world - a tactful way of saying he is unemployable. Leaving the army hospital and breaking hearts along the way, Harry eventually develops a mentalist act with Madame Zuleika (Laura Hope Crews), an old beef, prone to drink and therefore not what she ought to be when it comes to deciphering Harry's code for the act.

Waiting in the wings is fellow performer, Irene Fellara (Shearer), an aerialist who, in an attempt to save Zuleika from making a fool of herself, inadvertently exposes her as a fraud to a live audience. Irene and Harry share an impassioned few days before parting company. The years roll by, until Harry is discovered on a train bound for Vienna with Les Blondes - a troop of hoofing beauties he hopes to promote as a new act. Unhappy circumstance for Harry and Les Blondes - their train is detained at the frontier on the cusp of WWII. Invited to a posh hotel in the Alps by American tourist/turned hotel coordinator, Don Navadel (Skeets Gallagher) Harry and his group discover they are the unwitting guests of the Nazi high command, in the embodiment of Capt. Kirvline (Joseph Schildkraut) and his entourage of soldiers. Also in attendance at the hotel are Charles Coburn as Dr. Hugo Waldersee, a scientist who abandons his research on a cure for cancer - using the metaphor of war as a cancer humanity will never cure; Burgess Meredith, as a staunch anti-war protester who incurs Kirvline's wrath and is assassinated, and, Edward Arnold - as Achille Weber, a disreputable Nazi sympathizer, arriving on the arm of none other than Irene, masquerading as a Russian countess.

Denying she ever knew Harry Irene continues her charade until it is revealed Achille has no intention of taking her with him. In fact, Achille does everything he can to expose Irene as a fraud - hence, leaving her at the mercy of the Nazis. Bombs fall on the hotel from a nearby airfield, leveling most of it to the ground, but sparing Harry and Irene who reconcile their love among these ruins. Idiot’s Delight justly endures today for Gable's delightfully rambunctious performance of Puttin' on the Ritz. What saves the movie from dating entirely are Gable and Shearer’s slinky repartee – two old pros showing off what they did best. Consider the moment when Irene spies Harry in his undershirt in a dressing room back stage. Gable slyly studying Irene’s gaze, suggests “Oh, so you like my magnetic personality?” to which Irene deceptively replies, “Nothing as obvious as that. I think you have a very remarkable brain!”  Perhaps treading too lightly on the plays original statement of 'war is hell' so let’s call it a garden party, the picture has great chemistry but not a lot going on between the scenes in which Gable and Shearer to not share the screen. Gable's rogue is in very fine form. But he requires a real lady to make his sly old dog click as it should. In Shearer’s absence, he is flying solo and their scenes apart are not altogether satisfying. Nevertheless, there are enough hallmarks from that grand and glorious Hollywood tradition, imbued with MGM’s resident glamour treatment, to make Idiot’s Delight more than worth your while - an enduring classic.

Idiot's Delight arrives on DVD via Warner’s MOD DVD program and there is precious little to recommend this slipshod effort. The B&W transfer is – in a word – abysmal. Not only is the image plagued by blown out contrast, heavy grain that appears digitized, and, a barrage of age-related artifacts, but there is also chroma bleeding and a lot of video noise afflicting this transfer. If I had to guess, I’d say Warner has done absolutely nothing to upgrade these elements since Turner Inc. owned the masters and slapped them out to VHS in the mid-1980’s.  Point blank: this is an appalling effort on Warner’s behalf, particularly for a vintage classic featuring Clark Gable in his prime. Gable, once afforded every luxury of the old home guard and studio-system currently does not even rank basic digital remastering and clean-up to keep his filmic legacy alive and well. For shame! Worse, there appears to be a glitch in the authoring. About 45 mins. into this transfer, the image inexplicably freezes, then jumps ahead by several frames before continuing to play. To confirm this was not simply the result of a shoddy ‘burn’, I sent my copy back to WAC for a replacement, which I received and which continued to suffer from the same glitch. The audio is 1.0 Dolby Digital mono as originally recorded and adequate for this presentation. That said, Idiot’s Delight, in its current state, is decidedly NOT recommended. Warner Home Video ought to be ashamed of their shortsightedness here.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

0

EXTRAS

0