The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Was this a made for TV film? Couldn't be for mainstream TV (and cable wasn't in place at the time), with all the sexual innuendo's, such as the penile sock to keep Gable's male part from 'catching cold.' I thought Brolin played Gable very well; looks, mannerisms; and, the make-up artist did a nice job on his ears. The voice resembled Gable's. Jill Clayburgh is too sweet to play Lombard, although I wouldn't know Lombard if I bumped into her. She was not a major player.So, the pair had sex every day; I doubt it, with the busy and conflicted schedules. Only teenage 'lovers' have sex every day. Makes it appear that it was a lust relationship rather than a love affair.Brolin played the role well but the film still resembles TV fare. I might be too young to comment on Lombard; I'm only 71 and wasn't born yet during this torrid romance.

A sloppy piece of filmmaking from the usually dependable Sidney J. Furie. It's poorly put together, factually flawed, and has bad sound. All of which might have been excusable had the leads not been played by James Brolin and Jill Clayburgh. Brolin & Clayburgh are fine actors, but they're clearly from another generation and have none of the presence possessed by the real Gable & Lombard. Brolin looks a lot like Gable (complete with Dumboesque ears), but Clayburgh is a so far from Carole Lombard, it's disastrous. Lombard was effervescence personified, while Clayburgh comes across as acting like an immature schoolgirl. There is very little chemistry between the two leads and there's zero sense of how famous they were in the 1930s. Furie may have struck gold with LADY SINGS THE BLUES, his dynamite biopic of Billie Holliday, but here he mines nothing but coal. Not even the presence of Red Buttons, Melanie Mayron and Allen Garfield (as LB Mayer) add much to the proceedings.

Slammed by critics in 1976 for playing loosely with the Hollywood facts (to put it mildly), this expensive, handsome-looking bio-pic regarding the romance between 1930s screen idols Clark Gable and Carole Lombard actually doesn't take the facts into consideration at all. Perhaps starting with the presumption that nobody knows the real dish, screenwriter Barry Sandler concocts a movie star yarn around personalities we mostly remember today through their pictures. Of course, film-historians were quick to point out all the inaccuracies, but I don't think Sandler nor director Sidney J. Furie was preoccupied with the truth. Sandler's Gable and Lombard appear to be based solely on his (and our) movie memories of them both, and leads James Brolin and Jill Clayburgh approach their roles in this precise spirit (particularly Clayburgh, who models her performance on Lombard's performance in "My Man Godfrey"). In a way, this was a novel concept considering that 1930s reality has now been permanently blurred via time and celluloid. Now for the bad news: Sandler's 'plot' spends far too much time on the loving couple having to sneak around since Gable was already married, and their meetings with Louis B. Mayer (Allen Garfield, playing Father Confessor) are pointless. In actuality, Clark and Carole brazenly showed up everywhere together, and the public ate it up. Sticking to the truth in this instance might've served Sandler better than the silly melodrama on display, which mitigates the screwball humor Furie stages at the beginning. This picture is a real mess from a narrative standpoint, and the acting isn't dynamic enough to hold interest. There's a terrible, shapeless sequence wherein Lombard barges into a Women's Press decency meeting yelling, "Cock-a-doodle-do!" and a limp bit in the courtroom with Carole getting blue on the stand (much to everyone's delight). Brolin has Gable's squint, mouth movements and vocal inflection down pat, yet his King is made to be so downtrodden that it comes as a surprise when Lombard expresses rapture over his bedroom prowess (again, in reality, the comedienne once famously confessed she adored 'Pa' but that their sex life was lacking). Had Sandler gone full-throttle with a high-comedy approach, the movie may have been a hoot. However, the phony dramatics overshadow everything in the end--and since the film is useless as a biography, a good portion of "Gable and Lombard" is utterly without purpose. ** from ****

Highly fictional movie about the love affair between Clark Gable (James Brolin) and Carole Lombard (Jill Clayburgh). It chronicles how they first meet and hate each other but eventually fall in love. The problem is Gable's first wife won't give him a divorce and their studios are threatening to drop them.There are so many factual errors here it's pointless to try and discuss them all. The biggest one for me was the portrayal of Louis B. Mayer (badly played by Allen Garfield) as a kindly man. He was loud and obnoxious and treated the actors like dirt. Here he comes across as a nice gentle father figure which is wildly inaccurate. Still if you just accept this as a fictional tale it's not too bad. It's pretty obvious they spent a lot of money on this--there's some truly beautiful sets and clothes. Also the script isn't too bad. It mostly consists of Brolin and Clayburgh screaming and arguing with each other or hopping into bed...but it still works.Brolin is VERY convincing as Gable. He looks like him and sounds like him. Also, from what I've heard, he pretty much gave an accurate portrayal of Gable as he really was. Clayburgh looks nothing like Lombard but her acting is excellent and she does show Lombard as she actually was--strong, funny and independent. Also Red Buttons is excellent as a studio publicist. Beautiful music score too.There are a few problems. The movie is way too long--it's 131 minutes and should have been shorter. Also there's a truly tacky sequence involving a "c**k soc" that should have been eliminated. But, as a fictional tale, this is pretty good. R rated for swearing and very frank sexual talk.