Well Deserved Praise

That was an excellent one.

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Professional jewel thief Clark Gable (as Gerald Meldrick) has a perfect replica of the fabulously valuable necklace called "Star of Asia" made. He goes to Bombay, India posing as a Lloyd's of London detective. Keeping his British accent under wraps, Mr. Gable plans to steal the jeweled necklace, and leave the fake in its place. He meets phony baroness and socialite Rosalind Russell (as Anya Von Duren), another thief who wants the necklace. Learning "Duchess of Beltravers" Jessie Ralph has a fondness for alcohol, Ms. Russell maneuvers herself a seat at Ms. Ralph's table and gets the old woman drunk...After Ralph passes out, Gable and Russell vie for the necklace. They become mutually attracted. All goes well when director Clarence Brown guides it around the Bombay hotel, where we follow the real and fake necklaces. Next, the co-stars escape authorities on a boat. Peter Lorre appears, briefly, as a Chinese captain with a yen for money. Uneasily, the heist story becomes a war movie. The playful first half is forgotten. They should have showed more of the delightful Jessie Ralph, looking for her necklace, and finally accepting Gable and Russell as imaginary heirs and occasional drinking buddies.***** They Met in Bombay (6/27/41) Clarence Brown ~ Clark Gable, Rosalind Russell, Jessie Ralph, Peter Lorre

Any movie that features Clark Gable in a pith helmet has got to be great, right?Well... kind of...The first two-thirds of "They Met In Bombay" is simply fantastic. Clark Gable is at his cocky-best as a con artist trying to steal a rare jewel, and Rosalind Russell is gorgeous as his love-interest/rival. The story moves along at a brisk pace and soon the two stars find they have more in common than they knew… and that they might be falling in love. The beauty parlor scene is hilarious, as is the scene where the two leads are stuck in an elevator. The movie is funny, engaging, romantic and sweet… classic Hollywood at its best. Sadly, the final third of the movie takes a strange and sudden turn and the story falls apart as a result.Most of the movie is a joy, with Gable and Russell romancing on the lam, and Peter Lorre turns up as some money-loving Chinaman crackpot, still speaking with his exaggerated coo, but then the movie swerves off the road and over the embankment. Gable impersonates a Canadian soldier as part of a scam and is then remanded to a military base and denied any access to the outside world. Still being mistaken for a soldier he is thrown into battle, where his sweet but unlikely heroism is almost as hard to believe as Russell's presence on the sidelines.Finally, Gable is awarded the Victoria Cross- the military's highest honor- only to discover he's been double-crossed by his true love. But that's no problem, because the serious part of the story is evidently over, and Gable is able to sneak in two bizarre and implausible twists in the final 90 seconds of the story. The awkward, contrived ending negates most of the movie's nice moments… they met in Bombay, and they should have stayed there.GRADE: C

It was great to see another little remembered Gable film made before he went off to war. When he was paired with Rosalind Russell in "China Seas", they met in Hong Hong and traveled by ship to Singapore. Here, they meet in Bombay and travel by ship to Hong Kong, under quite different circumstances, as fugitive jewel thieves. In general form, this film reminds me of the later "The Big Steal", a chase thriller-screwball romantic comedy combo in an exotic locale, involving a man and woman, unknown to each other, looking for the same thing. Toward the end, it turns into a forerunner of "The Great Imposter", with Gable successfully fooling the British Hong Kong garrison into believing he is a British officer, who happens to be passing through. This gets him into more hot water than he bargained for, as the Japanese invade Hong Kong(as they actually did less than a year later!). Peter Lorre doesn't fool anyone as the supposedly Chinese captain of the ship taking the thieves to Hong Kong. This is mostly Gable's film. Sometimes, I wondered if I was looking at a deglamourized Heddy Lamarr instead of Rosalind Russell. All in all, an entertaining, if silly, romp, with Gable still looking in peak form and seeming to enjoy himself.

This picture is likely to make the viewer yearn to know what went on behind the scenes during its making. The impression one gets is that about halfway through the filming (or writing of the scenario, or both) someone decided that what they had so far wasn't working, but that there was already too much invested to discard it. So from a conventional international jewel thieves romance/suspense/comedy (better than some of its type, not as good as others), the film shifts gears abruptly and becomes a wartime adventure, with our hero and heroine trapped by the battles raging around them. Having once put in some time in the military (before being asked to leave), the Gable character needs do nothing more than don a tailor-made uniform to pass as an authentic member of the corps, his presence unquestioned by any of his colleagues, his authority unchallenged by anyone to whom he issues orders. Needless to say, he becomes a war hero, awarded the highest honors despite there presumably being no record of his existence.Wait a minute.....weren't we talking about jewel thieves? Yes, and so was the picture, no more than fifteen minutes earlier.Don't despair - before the final credits, the two stories are reconciled about as clumsily as the rest of the picture is put together.Could it be that this 1941 product was deemed too lightweight and frivolous for an audience whose nation was being drawn into a world war, and that the studio bosses decided to make it more contemporary? If so, they should have taken their losses on what was already written and/or filmed, because the incongruous story they released is an embarrassment.