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.
Review of Gable and Lombard
