The 1930s represented the strongest and most significant decade in Clark Gable’s career. Later known as The King of Hollywood, Gable started out as a journeyman actor who quickly rose to the level of star, and then icon. With his ruggedly attractive looks and effortless charisma, Gable was the sort of manly romantic lead that bolstered features alongside the likes of Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, and Spencer Tracy. The decade culminated with Gable’s most noted movie, Gone With the Wind. This book traces Gable’s early career, film-by-film, offering background information and a critical assessment of each of his movies released during the 1930s.

James L. Neibaur is a film historian and scholar with more than 30 books and hundreds of articles appearing in Cineaste, Classic Images, Film Quarterly, Films in Review, Filmfax, and Encyclopædia Britannica.

James L. Neibaur

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 205
Bibliographic Info: 57 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2021
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8044-6
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4168-3
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments  vi
Introduction  1
1. The Early Years  3
2. The Films  6
The Painted Desert (1931)  6
The Easiest Way (1931)  9
Dance, Fools, Dance (1931)  12
The Finger Points (1931)  16
The Secret Six (1931)  18
Laughing Sinners (1931)  21
A Free Soul (1931)  24
Night Nurse (1931)  28
Sporting Blood (1931)  32
Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (1931)  36
Hell Divers (1931)  39
Possessed (1931)  44
Polly of the Circus (1932)  48
Strange Interlude (1932)  52
Red Dust (1932)  55
No Man of Her Own (1932)  59
The White Sister (1933)  62
Hold Your Man (1933)  65
Night Flight (1933)  68
Dancing Lady (1933)  71
It Happened One Night (1934)  75
Men in White (1934)  84
Manhattan Melodrama (1934)  88
Chained (1934)  95
Forsaking All Others (1934)  99
After Office Hours (1935)  104
China Seas (1935)  107
Call of the Wild (1935)  111
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)  119
Wife vs. Secretary (1936)  125
San Francisco (1936)  129
Cain and Mabel (1936)  135
Love on the Run (1936)  140
Parnell (1937)  143
Saratoga (1937)  148
Test Pilot (1938)  151
Too Hot to Handle (1938)  157
Idiot’s Delight (1939)  164
Gone with the Wind (1939)  167
3. After the 1930s  178
Notes  187
Bibliography  191
Index  195