Diagonaldi Very well executed

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Fatal_When_Swallowed I just watched this schlockfest on Encore. In the 1970s I read the reviews panning it, and so I never saw it until tonight.Screenwriter Barry Sandler slapped together the script for "Gable and Lombard." If you don't recognize Sandler's name, he is also the writer of one of the most famously awful movies of all time, "Making Love." Although presenting a gay-themed love story was a bold move during the early Reagan years, it was severely criticized, not so much for its subject matter but for its cringe-inducing dialogue. The same holds true for "Gable and Lombard." Marvelous, vividly colorful cinematography is wasted on a poorly written and largely imaginary "biopic" of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. In the background, the incessant repetition of Michel Legrand's trite, syrupy theme grows tiresome very fast. As for the characters' screwball action, stretched out for 132 specious minutes, no better adjective than "trashy" applies. But Sandler saves the worst for last. Gable, resplendent in his Air Force uniform (he didn't actually enlist until AFTER Lombard's death) sits under a tent near the site where Lombard's plane has crashed, killing everybody on board. Gable says that he wants to go up to find her, but his fictional good buddy Ivan Cooper, who has been holding his hand for practically the entire film, convinces him to leave, saying, "She wouldn't want you to remember her that way." Obediently, Gable immediately leaves in a green sedan. The movie should have ended right there. However, in a REALLY classy move, Sandler decides to depict the grief-stricken Gable telling the driver a filthy anecdote, after which the camera pans out and the soppy Legrand theme rises for the last time over the credits. This moment left me stunned. Even if it were true--which by all accounts it wasn't--why leave us with an obscene final impression of Clark Gable? It's not merely preposterous, but beyond disgusting. It would have been more poignant to go with the truth, which is that Gable was prevented from hiking up with the search team to look for his wife, and remained in the area for days while the team dug through the wreckage. He is quoted as saying, "They never let me go to the crash site," and spent the rest of his life sending searchers back to look for Carole's wedding ring, which was never found. There is so much more that Sandler could have done with this story and didn't. Choosing scatology over dignity, he put a toilet-paper ribbon on his Technicolor package of lies about people who meant little more to him than cartoon characters, and flung it at the audience, flipping the bird in farewell.

BooBoo516 This movie was quite maligned when it came out. Since I had been a big fan of both vivacious Jill Clayburgh and the manly James Brolin at the time I went to see it. Since I was a teen, I took a lot of what was portrayed as quite accurate. True it is a mostly fictionalized account of the two stars, but it has got some redeeming qualities. Namely, Brolin's dead on Gable. He is indeed very good, and I kept forgetting that it was not really Clark Gable. Clayburgh, as attractive as she is does not have Lombard's classic beauty or figure, but she's so gosh darn likable as Lombard one can overlook her shortcomings. Seeing it again recently, Jill Clayburgh as Lombard is a stretch, but I felt she put so much into the character, and a better script couldn't have hurt. Physical aspects aside, the two actors have great chemistry, and one gets the impression they are really crazy about each other. It's ashame that neither Brolin or Clayburgh got more to do...the story does meander at times and the film is a tad too long. Although it's not a great film, it's definitely worth checking out. Be on the lookout for Melanie Mayron as Dixie, before she went from frump to vixen.

Ben Burgraff (cariart) GABLE AND LOMBARD is the kind of film that Hollywood history buffs hate, but fans of love stories just eat up. In other words, the truth is often distorted or ignored, but the emotional core is dead-on.I won't dwell on the many mistakes, but two are glaring, and must be pointed out. While Carole Lombard was a truly gifted actress (particularly in comedies), she was never Hollywood's #1 star (Lombard never achieved the status of Shearer, Garbo, Davis, or Crawford); L.B. Mayer's 'ordering' rising star Gable to 'make nice' with her, so she'd agree to do a picture at Metro with him is pure hokum. Actors had virtually no say in 'loan outs' in the 1930s; studios made all the decisions, based on maximizing their profits, and controlling their stars. A case in point was Gable's participation in Columbia's IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. Had he been given the opportunity, he'd have refused to go (he considered it a 'step backward', and it was, in fact, done as punishment against him, on MGM's part), and he would have never have won his only Academy Award! The other major gaffe is showing Gable as an AAF officer at the time of Lombard's death. He didn't enlist until after she'd died, partially because of the guilt he felt over his lack of involvement in the war effort, a cause Lombard had died supporting. While Brolin, as Gable, looks terrific in uniform, it just wasn't the truth.The effectiveness of a story like this relies heavily on the actors portraying the stars, and GABLE AND LOMBARD offers an interesting combination. Despite David Janssen's heavy lobbying for the role of Clark Gable (he always felt he was, actually, Gable's son, and he did, in fact, share many of the actor's physical and vocal qualities), the producers felt that, at 46, he was too old for the role, and went, instead, with 36-year-old James Brolin. Brolin, best-known for his stint in the hit TV series, 'Marcus Welby, M.D.' (and later, in another series, 'Hotel'), was an actor who had all the right 'tools', but never quite achieved film stardom. Nearly cast as Roger Moore's replacement as James Bond (despite a terrific screen test, producer Cubby Broccoli decided to stick with United Kingdom actors), Brolin, with a mustache, looked eerily like Gable during the actor's peak years, and could mimic the actor's vocal inflections and physical mannerisms very effectively. The end result of his mimicry, however, was a Gable who lacked depth, and his performance frequently seemed more a caricature than a portrayal.Jill Clayburgh, as Carole Lombard, faced a different problem. The 32-year-old actress (who would achieve stardom the following year, in SILVER STREAK), had a very well-written role, which was, in fact, quite close to the actress' actual personality (big-hearted yet at times acerbic, Lombard was known for her salty humor and frequent use of four-letter words, in stark contrast with her classic beauty). Clayburgh, however, with her broad features, looked nothing like Carole Lombard. (If you're unfamiliar with Lombard's 'look', her closest contemporary counterpart is Michelle Pfeiffer.) Clayburgh plays the role very well, but, knowing this, I could never 'suspend disbelief' enough to accept her as Lombard. However, as I said at the beginning, if you are hooked by true love stories (and aren't familiar with the 'real' Carole Lombard), GABLE AND LOMBARD has all the elements you can ask for; antagonism turning to attraction and then 'forbidden' passion, nearly insurmountable obstacles blocking happiness, eventual triumph, then a heartbreaking tragedy that would ultimately immortalize the lovers. Gable 'carried a torch' for his lost love until his death, in 1960, and GABLE AND LOMBARD gives ample evidence of her impact on his life.The film is a flawed, but moving testament to their love.

davelisalynch Might not be the best movie, but most of the incidents in this film really took place (read the book by Warren G. Harris)! Some of the character's are fictionalized, but the story about the romance is not. James Brolin IS Clark Gable. Brolin has Gable's personality and mannerisms down to a "T" and plays Gable with dignity and grace(unlike Edward Winter did in Moviola:The Scarlett O'Hara War. Winter played him as down home, backwoods, stupid hick, which Gable was FAR from!) I don't know if Brolin did any research for his role but he's sure got Gable down pat!! Jill Clayburgh, on the other hand, overplays her role a bit, but maybe that was the way Lombard really was! All in all, Gable and Lombard is an excellent movie for film buffs, fans of Gable and/or Lombard, or suckers for old fashioned romances. Unfortunately, the only way to see this film is on cable in a heavily edited TV version. Put it out on DVD!!