Meet Cute

As promised, Manhattan Melodrama (1934). To some, it is famous as the movie Dillinger was watching at the Biograph Theater before he was gunned down. To me, it is the first pairing of the delightful Myrna Loy with the debonair William Powell, soon to become famous in The Thin Man.

It's a story about two kids, orphaned in a boating disaster. One is a tough prankster, the other a bookworm. The prankster grows up to be a gangster, Clark Gable. The bookworm becomes D.A William Powell. Gable's mistake was asking his girl Myrna Loy to entertain friend Powell while Gable did some debt collecting. Soon, she leaves the gangster for the lawman. Is Gable mad? No, he's proud of his friend, and allows as how Loy has probably made the right choice.

So it's pretty much the standard melodrama, two kids growing up on the mean streets of Manhattan, ending up on different sides of the law, and the woman that comes between them. But in this case, she doesn't come between them. And Gable is always proud of what his friend is doing, and hopes he makes it to President some day - even if Powell has to put him away.

I came for the romance between Powell and Loy, and it was worth it. She looks more than lovely, but somehow intelligent as well as noble and true. There's some real chemistry between her and Powell. But Gable is even better, an irrepressible gambler, honorable in his crooked way. Expects to be paid when he wins and pays when he loses, without complaining. It's quite a role, and he really pulls it off.

Character actor alert: Leo Carillo plays the slum/prison pastor Father Joe. And Gable's sidekick Spud is lovable lug Nat Pendleton, who also shows up in The Thin Man.

A classy production with a B-movie heart, glad I watched it.