Crawford and Gable and the oddball Strange Cargo

Posted by Bill Wren

I stumbled upon Strange Cargo last night and rarely has the word “strange” in a title been used so appropriately. This movie is strange indeed. It’s also a pretty good adventure film starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable (the latter’s previous movie was Gone With the Wind).

Strange Cargo (1940)

Directed by Frank Borzage
Crawford and Gable are two feisty lovers with a stormy relationship. Neither is a person of outstanding character. The storminess was likely easy for both to convey because in reality the pair, who had a prior relationship, detested one another.

In the movie, Crawford is essentially a hooker (though Hollywood censorship of the period means this is only vaguely suggested). Gable is a nasty, self-centered rogue who manages to be charming at the same time.

We find them on Devil’s Island (French Guiana) where they get mixed up with a group of convicts in an escape attempt. The majority of the movie is the struggles and conflicts of this rag tag bunch as they make their way through the jungle and swamps of the island and then on board a small ship as they try to get away.

Joan Crawford in Strange Cargo (1940).

Fine enough, and a pretty de rigueur setting for an adventure of the period. But there is an element in the movie that makes it anything but de rigueur. That element is the character of Cambreau, played by Ian Hunter. He appears mysteriously and joins the convicts in their escape but he is not your usual prisoner.

Cambreau is a Christ-like figure that steers the movie into religious allegory and allows the film to meditate on subjects like God, morality, ethics and honour. While this may not sound appealing (and yes, occasionally it is a little heavy-handed), the mysterious quality Hunter’s Cambreau figure brings adds to the adventure.

Gable, by the way, objected to this aspect of the movie. He thought it would prompt audiences to stay away. In his opinion, people expected love and sex in a Crawford-Gable movie.

Joan Crawford Clark Gable in Strange Cargo.

Both Crawford and Gable are wonderful in the movie, particularly Crawford as the slatternly Julie. I read somewhere that Crawford was quite proud of the way she put her “star” image aside and portrayed the character. I noticed how in many scenes she adds small, subtle touches to communicate the character’s “low rent” status, such as one scene where it is in how she sits (not what my mother would have called “lady-like”.)

She also went without makeup or false eyelashes and her costume, essentially two dresses, was from a bargain boutique.

Gable is equally unglamorous in his appearance, wearing torn clothes and growing increasingly unshaven as the movie progresses. In fact, the movie appears to make a concerted effort to ensure both its stars are unstar-like, visually.

Clark Gable in Strange Cargo (1940).

The end result is a movie that is peculiar yet compelling, partly due to its oddness. The Cambreau character, while bringing in the religious element, also adds mystery to the overall adventure as no one ever quite knows who he is.

On the other hand, some scenes aren’t subtle in communicating the Christ figure aspect, such as the scene near the end when Cambreau is in the stormy waters with his arms out, as if on a cross.

Yes, Strange Cargo is an odd movie. But it’s worth seeing at least once, especially if you’re a Gable or Crawford fan.

An aside … According to Warren Harris in Clark Gable: A Biography, this movie was made at a time when “Joan Crawford, whose box-office popularity had sunk an all-time low, had talked L.B. Mayer into teaming them (Gable and Crawford) for the first time since the 1936 Love On the Run, which was also Crawford’s last hit.”

Guy movie with Gable and gravitas

Posted by Bill Wren

I’m always astonished when I notice the movies Robert Wise has been involved with, particularly as director. I tend to think of him as a “meat and potatoes” kind of director because I don’t notice him. His movies never draw attention to themselves as movies; they’re simply stories told well.

As an editor, he worked with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane. As director, he’s done movies like The Sound of Music, The Haunting, West Side Story (as co-director) and the movie below, Run Silent, Run Deep.

Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)

Directed by Robert Wise

I saw an interview with the actor Laurence Fishburne the other day in which he was speaking of various influences when he was young. At one point, he brought up the movie Run Silent, Run Deep and Clark Gable. What struck him in the movie was Gable’s gravitas. I immediately thought, “Yes, that is the perfect word for it.”

Fishburne brought this up because Gable would have been in his late 50s when he made the film.

He was not playing the young, dashing, romantic figure of movies like Gone With the Wind. And he wasn’t playing the great white hunter of Mogambo, made only five years earlier.

He does, however, play a “manly man,” which would have had great appeal for him, from the little I know of Gable.

Run Silent, Run Deep is a guy movie. There are really only two female roles in the movie: a very small part as Gable’s wife (Mary LaRoche) and a pin-up poster. It’s all guys and for the most part they are confined in a submarine. Despite that, it’s a good movie. Actually, it is because of that it is a good movie. It knows what it is about and its focus doesn’t waver.

Gable is submarine Commander Richardson, a man who, as we see in the opening scenes, loses the sub he commands when it is sunk by a Japanese destroyer, one that acquires a kind of legendary status because it is so successful in sinking U.S. subs. (The movie is set during World War II.)

After a long wait, Richardson gets another command (one he has specifically gone after). Unfortunately, that sub’s crew thinks their first officer, Lieutenant Jim Bledsoe (Burt Lancaster) is getting the command, as does Bledsoe. When Richardson comes aboard to take over, it is to a resentful crew and first officer.

Things don’t improve when he makes the crew go through the same drill repeatedly, obsessed with shaving seconds off the time it takes to dive and launch torpedoes. It further degrades when this new commander appears to avoid going after Japanese ships. It strikes the crew as cowardly.

It turns out the commander has plans: against orders, he intends to take the sub into dangerous waters and sink the unsinkable ship that is taking out all the U.S. subs, including Commander Richardson’s previous submarine.

It’s a simple, direct story and won’t ever be accused of being overly sophisticated. But it’s virtue is its simplicity and directness. Director Robert Wise has left nothing necessary out and has put nothing unnecessary in.

Gravitas, like the word gravity, comes from the Latin word “gravis” which means seriousness or weightiness. Gable communicates it wonderfully. Lancaster does to a degree too, though in a different way. Between the two actors, you get a nicely dramatic contrast.

Gable, outside moments of command, speaks in a drawling, friendly manner. In moments of command, he’s brusque and direct. Lancaster, on the other hand, with his character’s resentment, speaks in a clipped fashion. He also communicates a sense of simmering anger that only his naval discipline keeps in control.

It’s the dynamic between the two characters that really propels this movie, though a straightforward, determined plot nicely aids it.

I’ve seen this movie several times over the years and have liked it every time. Initially, I was a young boy and thought it was cool because it had submarines and torpedoes. Grown up, I like it because it is just a good, well told story.

I watched Mogambo

Posted by Bill Wren

Apparently I can’t trust anything I claim I’ll do. I said I was going to watch Marie Antoinette (and I still intend to), but last night I watched Mogambo (1953) instead.

I found it a bit slow and certainly anachronistic at the start. There was a little too much of that period (early 1950’s) machismo.

You know, Clark Gable playing the man’s man, the great white hunter and so on. (Well, it is a John Ford film.) And some of the safari footage, the hunting and trapping of animals for business and sport … well, that’s not the sort of thing I’m comfortable with.

But as mentioned, this is a film from 1953 and some of what you see in terms of attitudes is dated, which is to be expected.

mogambo02.jpgHowever … while slow to get going, things definitely pick up and improve immensely. When and how? When enters the story.

Not only does she look fabulous (she is Ava Gardner, after all), but she really is the key to making this film engaging.

Not that Clark Gable and Grace Kelly aren’t fine in their roles. Well, Kelly is a bit bland but that’s partly because of the role she’s playing. (Story problem: Between the character played by Ava Gardner and the one played by Grace Kelly, Gable’s character goes for Kelly’s? Too much time in the jungle, pal. I find that storyline a bit difficult to buy.)

I’ll avoid a plot synopsis. The story is basically: Gardner falls for Gable; Gable falls for Kelly; Kelly falls for Gable. Kelly is married; husband is kind of professorial twit, obtuse, yet loves his wife. Characters battle with passions and morality. This all plays out against a safari to find gorillas in Africa.

Although that all sounds a bit lame, surprisingly it is not. In fact, it gets quite entertaining. At times suspenseful, sometimes dramatic and sometimes very amusing. And thanks to Ava Gardner’s vitality, it gets quite compelling.

This is definitely not a great movie. But it is quite good, particularly if you enjoy older movies. And if you’re an Ava Gardner fan, I think this one is a must see.

The movie is also a remake of 1932’s Red Dust, which starred Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge this film isn’t available on DVD so I haven’t seen it. That’s frustrating because many of the comments I’ve come across regarding Mogambo centre around it’s being good but how Red Dust was so much better.

It would certainly be interesting to see a younger Gable playing this role. He definitely looks like an older man in Mogambo but I couldn’t help thinking how, to our eyes, he may look older but in fact, were he that age and shooting the film today, we’d have no problem along those lines because he’d have had his hair dyed and highlighted and maybe even had a few botox shots.

Actually, I kind of liked seeing someone who actually looked older playing the lead role in something.

Stars: 2 ½ out of 4.

(For what it’s worth, I did a kind of review of an Ava Gardner biography that I enjoyed. I .)

Reading about Clark Gable, movie star

Posted by Bill Wren

I’m currently reading Clark Gable: a Biography by Warren G. Harris. While not great, it’s certainly pretty good. I’m almost finished it and I have to be honest, what I find most interesting is how uninteresting Clark Gable is.

Perhaps a more rigorous biography might have helped this – a bit more psychological focus, assuming there is sufficient information available to do that.

The book itself is interesting enough, but it just seems a bit odd that someone of that “star” stature should be so … well, bland. But perhaps that’s the real story of Gable – a huge success in that Hollywood world, yet really just an average guy.

Of course, I should also say that while I’ve never disliked Clark Gable movies, and there are few I like quite a lot (Gone With the Wind and Run Silent Run Deep, for instance) I’ve never been a huge fan of his.