Idiot's Delight

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Audience Member This movie, released in January 1939, it is amazingly prescient at predicting what was going to happen in the next few years, namely the horror of World War II. The story itself is charming, as our Clark Gable and Norma Shearer, and features a bravura performance by my favorite actor Burgess Meredith! Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member Gable and Shearer give two their best performances in the top film adaptation of Robert Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway smash Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review Audience Member A misfire extraordinaire! Gable dances like he has shackles on his feet; the anti-Astaire. The acting and direction are incredibly stilted; Shearer is absurdly camp. Her affectations are ridiculous. The pacifist message of this movie is almost comical, in light of the actual history of WWII. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/17/23 Full Review Audience Member Robert E. Sherwood won the coveted Pulitzer Prize for his allegory-like satire Idiot's Delight. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer purchased the film rights to the play, and commissioned Sherwood himself to adapt his play to the screen. The result is this astoundingly poignant classic, which features Norma Shearer and Clark Gable in the third and last of their radiant screen pairings... Wonderfully odd--A Russian Countess on the Swiss border is really an American vaudeville performer in disguise; she's not hiding from anything or anyone, she just wants to be bigger than life. Unfortunately, a second-rate song-and-dance man she once dated is staying at the same hotel, while wartime hysteria is breaking out all around them... Shearer and Gable ham it up to this idiot's delight!! Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member good and enjoyable com-dram Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Audience Member Idiot's Delight (1939) This is kind of a weird movie for Clark Gable. You don't often see Gable doing soft shoe numbers, singing, dancing, and playing in vaudeville gags, but here he is trying to make a living on the stage. Harry Van (Gable) is trying to stay in the business, going from one partner and routine to the other. He isn't all that successful, but you know that he'll keep at it and eventually do good. He meets up with a small-town country girl, and dreamer, Irene Fellara (Norma Shearer) and they sort of hit it off. Although the relationship is kind of doomed from the start, Harry can't seem to forget Irene. Later, Harry is able to get a small troop of dancing girls put together and they're touring Europe and he bumps into Irene in a resort in the Alps just before the Nazis invade the country. Only this time Irene is acting like some over-the-top, campy, Russian aristocrat who is the mistress to a rich industrialist, Archille Weber (Edward Arnold). This is Harry's last chance and you know that he's going to try to take it, as well as Irene. But, war is on the horizon. This is the beginning of the war movies of the 40s and everyone is gearing up for the fight to come. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/16/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Idiot's Delight

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