IDIOT'S DELIGHT: Blu-ray (MGM, 1939) Warner Archive

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 the Teflon-coated sun God of the MGM backlot. He actually had a ‘throne’ erected to his stardom in the MGM commissary! The first, was undeniably 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 with Gable as the he-hunk du jour.

But the second, and arguably, more seismic shift – at least where Clark was concerned, would occur almost 3-yrs. later when, while on a return trip from selling war bonds, his wife of barely nine months, screen madcap, Carol Lombard, perished in a horrific plane crash. Gable and Lombard were already an item in 1939. Indeed, Gable had orchestrated a shrewd divorce from his second wife, ‘Ria’ Franklin, via the auspices of producer, David O. Selznick. Gable was 30; Franklin, 47. As Selznick wanted Gable for his opus magnum, Gone with the Wind, and Gable ostensibly wanted no part of being cast in, arguably, his most famous role – that of the dashing scallywag, Rhett Butler - Selznick sought to sweeten the deal by giving the star what he actually wanted; the opportunity to break his ironclad ‘morality clause’ and make his affair with the outspoken Lombard public post-haste. Lombard had no problem making her position on their affair known to the press. “I’m just nuts about Clark,” she told reporters, “…and not just nuts about his nuts.”

When the U.S. entered WWII at the end of 1941, Lombard vowed to do her part for the war effort, attending numerous rallies and becoming a major contributor to the relief fund. On this fateful occasion, she was travelling home with her mother, Bess Peters, and close personal friend, and Gable’s press agent, Otto Winkler. The trio ought to have returned from Indiana by train. However, Lombard anxious to expedite their trip to be with Gable, opted instead to fly.  Neither Bess nor Winkler were keen on the idea. A flip a coin decided their fate. Regrettably, Lombard won this 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, though much to the chagrin of his boss, MGM’s Louis B. Mayer, 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, if carefree masculinity, carefully crafted by the studio, but imbued with Gable’s own inimitable smugness, never to take all that 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 ‘Wind’s director, Victor Fleming, to weep salty tears as a distraught Rhett Butler.

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 galvanized 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, her career had truly blossomed. 1939 would mark Norma’s best work in another MGM picture – The Women, for George Cukor. So, retrospectively speaking, Idiot’s Delight seems like a poor cousin for both stars whose year-end best efforts had been put forth elsewhere. Not so. Idiot’s Delight is…well…delightful, thanks to Gable and Shearer, and Edward Arnold in a supporting role. 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 plies Harry with her charms. He believes she is attracted to his ‘magnetic personality’. But she naively reinforces she believes he has a ‘remarkable brain’. Regardless, the couple shares 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.

Also in attendance are Charles Coburn as Dr. Hugo Waldersee, a scientist who abandoned 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 grand 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 for Gable's delightfully rambunctious performance of Irving Berlin’s Puttin' on the Ritz. What saves the movie from dating 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 do not share the screen. Gable's rogue is in very fine form. But he requires a regal leading lady to make his sly old dog click as it should. In Shearer’s absence, he does a lot of solo flying and those scenes apart are not nearly as satisfying. Nevertheless, there are enough hallmarks from that grand and glorious Hollywood tradition, imbued with MGM’s resident glamor treatment, to make Idiot’s Delight more than worth your while. It’s just a fun ‘little’ movie, monumentally dwarfed in its respect and reputation by the stars’ other contributions from 1939.

Idiot's Delight was previously released on MOD DVD via the Warner Archive (WAC) in an utterly disastrous effort, plagued by blown out contrast, digitized grain, and, a barrage of age-related artifacts, with needless chroma bleeding and a lot of video noise afflicting this transfer. Well, you can officially retire that abysmal disc, because WAC’s new-to-Blu is a revelation, exposing the true merits of William H. Daniel’s cinematography for the very first time since 1939. The B&W image here is pristine, with dialed in contrast levels that reveal a ton of fine detail throughout. Age-related artifacts are a thing of the past. And the new scan brings the true texture and content of a film-like presentation to bear. This is an excellent effort from WAC, prone to doing very fine work on movies once thought to be beyond repair. The 2.0 mono audio, to have sounded strident on the tired, old DVD, now has a casual crispness that seems in line with its vintage, while sounding years better than one might expect. Extras are light. Two vintage cartoons and a trailer. Oh well, can’t have everything. Thank you WAC and George Feltenstein for resurrecting Idiot’s Delight from home video oblivion. More Gable in hi-def…pretty, please!

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

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

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