On the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, it's worth seeking out this 1936 chestnut if you can - even though it represents both the best and worst of what MGM did back in Hollywood's golden age. Be forewarned that it's slow going until the last twenty minutes when the studio pulled out all the stops to recreate the legendary earthquake and fire that destroyed the entire city. It's hard to believe that neither the Golden Gate Bridge nor the Bay Bridge was even built when this film was made, and in fact, only thirty years had elapsed since the earthquake occurred. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke in less than subtle fashion, the patently old-fashioned melodrama stars Clark Gable as notorious gambling hall owner Blackie Norton and Jeanette McDonald as virginal parson's daughter Mary Blake. A large supporting cast was assembled, which included the redoubtable Spencer Tracy, then a rising MGM star.
The silly, cornball story revolves around Blackie's attempts to turn Mary into the hall chanteuse despite her aspiration to become a world-famous opera singer. Mary falls for Blackie for reasons unclear except that he's Gable. A limited actress when speaking, the overly mannered McDonald sings frequently in the film in that soprano operetta vocal style that apparently was popular back then, and there is even an overlong sequence where she plays Marguerite in Gounod's "Faust" and brings Blackie rather incredibly to tears. In a thankless role, Tracy plays the pugnacious but kindly Father Mullen, who symbolizes the film's heavy religious overtones resulting in a most unbelievable conversion at the end. However, the recreations of the earthquake and fires are impressive by any standards, much less those of 1936. Director W.S. Van Dyke seems to borrow quite a bit from the Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 classic "Battleship Potemkin", but the quick cuts and implied carnage work very well in any context. Anita Loos, who penned the classic "The Women", wrote the heavy-handed script.
The silly, cornball story revolves around Blackie's attempts to turn Mary into the hall chanteuse despite her aspiration to become a world-famous opera singer. Mary falls for Blackie for reasons unclear except that he's Gable. A limited actress when speaking, the overly mannered McDonald sings frequently in the film in that soprano operetta vocal style that apparently was popular back then, and there is even an overlong sequence where she plays Marguerite in Gounod's "Faust" and brings Blackie rather incredibly to tears. In a thankless role, Tracy plays the pugnacious but kindly Father Mullen, who symbolizes the film's heavy religious overtones resulting in a most unbelievable conversion at the end. However, the recreations of the earthquake and fires are impressive by any standards, much less those of 1936. Director W.S. Van Dyke seems to borrow quite a bit from the Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 classic "Battleship Potemkin", but the quick cuts and implied carnage work very well in any context. Anita Loos, who penned the classic "The Women", wrote the heavy-handed script.