A Free Soul (1931)Clark Gable says, "I'm telling you." And Norma Shearer, dressed in a sexy silk dress, replies, "Oh no, you're not. Nobody is."That sums up this astonishing movie. I can't believe A Free Soul is so little known, or that so many viewers don't get the depth of its meaning then...and now. Throw in three of the most amazing actors of the early 1930s--Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, and Norma Shearer--and you can't help be impressed, and moved, and intrigued. It's about strength of character (three or four characters, in fact). It's about being a modern person, and having modern problems. And it's about facing them, openly, honestly.So what holds it back? Well, for one thing, it has a lot of talk, a lot of simple dialog about some very not simple things. If you accept the characters and their need to talk, you will see a very honest confrontation with alcoholism, and with what is at first a kind of sex addiction, or what is later developed to be simply unbridled love for a man outside of marriage. But the parallel between two temptations is real, and rather powerful, and the sacrifices each of the two afflicted characters make is intense. Barrymore (as the one nipping the bottle) and Shearer (as the one too much in love, or in love with lovemaking) play their parts perfectly. They have moments of extraordinary clarity, and moments of abandonment. And they confront each other in a way that is completely reasonable.There are other aspects here worth at least lifting an eyebrow at, namely the very close relationship, almost as platonic lovers, between these two. Gable as a lovable but brutal and deceptive gangster is perfect, too--gorgeous and hard, charming and untrustworthy. The milieu is well developed, from barroom to hotel room to courtroom. This isn't a Warner Brothers knock-you-out crime film, it isn't even Three on a Match, for an example of a compromise between a woman's picture and a gangster flick. It's a heady drama, beautifully laid out and progressively involving, with director Clarence Brown (famous for a whole string of such interpersonal, romantic dramas over several decades) knowing what makes a film really matter.

A Norma Shearer soap opera about a free-spirited woman and her alcoholic attorney father (Lionel Barrymore) who stand together against the disapproving snobbery of their family. Shearer falls in love with a thug who her father defended in court (Clark Gable), and finds that her father's talk about the second chances due to troubled souls does not extend to them when they're dating his daughter. The pair enter into an agreement: she'll stop seeing the thug if he'll stop drinking. Things take appropriately outlandish and melodramatic turns when Shearer's former fiancée (Leslie Howard) gets involved, kills Gable, and finds himself being defended in court by who?.....you guessed it, good old Barrymore, who just has time to finish an impassioned plea for the man's life before dropping dead.Whew, that's a lot to pack into a 90 minute film. There's not much of note about this movie except for the good performances of Shearer and Barrymore (though she was better in the previous year's melodrama, "The Divorcée") and its frank treatment of alcoholism. Had this come out a few years later, after the Production Code was firmly in place, the film would not have even been able to admit that alcoholism existed.Grade: B

Yeah, yeah, it's Gable and Howard 8 years before Gone With the Wind, and even then the former makes the latter look like a eunuch. A number of posters seem flummoxed by this little coincidence and by the early-talkie theatricality of this movie. But for its time it really moves and breathes, particularly in the impressive scenes of Norma Shearer and Lionel Barrymore camping in the Sierras, trying and failing to leave their addictions behind and repair their broken relationship.Technically, this movie may be primitive, but in terms of content and meaning you couldn't get it made today: it's the story of a woman who uses a thug only for her own sexual pleasure, and the baffled and violent way the men in her life react. All three of them are outwardly brilliant and successful -- the lawyer, the gangster, and the rich polo player -- but have their vanity and weakness exposed when confronted with a powerful woman making her own choices. Some of the quieter moments of this movie are pretty devastating.p.s. strange how the myth that Gable "slaps" Shearer persists... are people really watching this movie? He shoves her back onto a couch twice, and that's it. The real violence is what she does to him by treating him as a boy toy.

One of the interesting things for me was seeing Clark Gable and Lesley Howard act together 8 yrs prior to Gone with the Wind. Kind of the same casting type-Lesley Howard the smart,cool headed guy and Clark Gable hotheaded, physical type.Maybe that was why I was shocked at how the LH character handled the situation with CG. This is the first time I've seen Lionel Barrymore in a lead role and was thinking he should have at least been nominated for an Oscar,so looked it up,and was pleased to see he won! Very deserved.I have an etching done by Lionel that my Mom had that shows his great talent in that area also. I saw this on Turner Classic Movies, after seeing the documentary about why the codes started. For it's time this is a very in your face movie. Alcohol abuse,co-habitating with no marriage. The obvious threat of an abusive marriage,or worse if she refuses the marriage. Also loved the scenes of 1931 San Francisco thru the window at the beginning, Yosemite and other areas.