Adventure (1945)Surely the title is a huge pun, or a huge mistake. This is an adventure of a man who is no longer looking for the high seas and wartime survival, but the adventure of love with a woman who is not, at fist his type. It's not as bad as some of the reviews suggest, but there is something steady and normal and incipient about it all. While featuring Clark Gable in the lead, and with the same director as Gone with the Wind a few years earlier, there is something stiff about it all, even the humor and fun. Greer Garson is the "serious" woman, someone who has to force herself to have fun, and Joan Blondell is the racy one, out for fun above all else. And if Gable seems suited to the crazy woman, he's clearly also set to be tamed by the other.That's pretty much the adventure, after a few wild scenes from kicking down the door in Chile to getting torpedoed by the Japanese. Garson can be impressive in her cultured way, but here she is hot and cold, on and off. It's partly her speeches are more words than meaning. There's nothing more boring than people talking about being exciting. If in one scene you'll be laughing as Gable and Garson trap some chickens, in the next you'll be forced to think deep thoughts about true adventure and true meaning—when in fact the meaning was in the chicken scene.Blondell never quite gets her due in many of her movies because she plays against (or in contrast to) the leading female who is more grand, or more beautiful, or just more star powered than she is. Too bad. She's fun but she also has fabulous screen presence. That, to me, is what matters most (often) in this era.The movie is too long in parts, and the theme wears thin after while. In the end it's about a sailor's life or the landlubber's, the first filled with freedom, the second with a home and a family. It's 1945, the soldiers are coming home—guess which side wins?

This film is worthy of better attention than it seems to have received to date. The original novel appears to have been quite philosophical. Powerful comments abound from start to finish...from wasted moments in life, to 'lost souls' on their own 'adventure' to find peace.I can agree with most comments regards the sharp change in Ms Garson's intelligent character ~ but looking at the many script credits, there was obviously much re-writing to 'lighten up' this work ~ bringing it more in line with a 'post war' public's mood (after all it was Mr Gables first appearance following war service) There's a great deal of quality: production values are superb, the cast is strong, the Director, one of the best. That grand old man of Movies, Harry Davenport, delivers some of the best lines (almost thrown away) in the final scenes of the film ~ summarizing the relationship of Man with God. Well worth giving this curious work another look (maybe even Mr Maltin threw this one away too easily) Films are personal, judge for yourself. KR..........For those who care to take a little time with their favorites, a few silly scenes can be easily edited out (without any harm to the main storyline) making this film far better than the overindulged theatrical version.

PARNELL is often regarded as Clark Gable's worst film. While it is indeed terrible (with Gable being horribly miscast and the film playing very fast and loose with the facts), I have to disagree with Harry Medved's book "The Fifty Worst Movies" and say that ADVENTURE is probably a worse film. He listed PARNELL as one of the top 50 worst, but I found the film to be silly fluff and not annoying like ADVENTURE. Plus, PARNELL was quickly forgotten and Gable went on to greater things, whereas ADVENTURE really helped to relegate Gable to second-tier films for most of the rest of his career (with a few exceptions here and there).ADVENTURE was the first film that came out after Gable was released from military service and after the death of his wife (Carole Lombard). Three years had passed since his last film and the public was itching to see the box office king return. Oddly, however, MGM chose to not only pair him with an actress who seemed nothing like his usual co-stars but also gave him a god-awful script. The public naturally hated the film and fortunately it lost money--proving that sometime the public isn't so stupid after all! What didn't I like about the movie? Well, aside from the characters played by Gable, Greer Garson and Thomas Mitchell, it wasn't all bad--but considering that these are the three leads, that's a serious problem!! All three seemed to have been written by farm animals--they were that poorly written and stupid.Gable plays a merchant marine officer. While this role seems ill-suited for a pretty guy like Clark, it might have still worked had it been written well. Instead, however, he comes off as a 'Jeckyl and Hyde' sort of guy--with two contradictory personalities. One is an obnoxious jerk who is selfish and thoroughly unlikable--especially for a lady with an I.Q. above 50. He's this way through the first half of the movie and that way occasionally thereafter. The other is a lovable rogue--roughly like the same guy he played in about a dozen films in the 1930s. The end result is a guy that is really tough to like--a severe problem in a film billed as a romance! What an idiot...but at least he made no bones about this in the film! As for Greer Garson, like Gable, I love her in films. She was a classy and wonderful actress in such great films as RANDOM HARVEST, VALLEY OF DECISION and MRS. MINIVER. Pairing her style and persona with Gable was all wrong and made no sense at all. What made less sense was the character she played--a 'Dr. Jeckyl and Ms. Hyde' with yet a third personality as well! The first was a self-confident lady who rightly sized up Gable as a jerk the first time she met him. She didn't need a man in her life and was someone you could respect. Then, completely out of the blue, she went from hating him to marrying him--and there is no logical reason for this change. Finally, later after they are married, she becomes a petulant little brat--angry at Clark for being a shallow jerk even though she married him knowing exactly who he was!! What a mega-idiot! As for Mitchell, he's not at all believable and seems more like a plot device than a real person. You can't imagine this superstitious idiot as a seaman and in fact, you can't imagine any religious person being stupid enough to go to a library instead of a church when they are having a serious spiritual crisis. What an idiot! If you get the impression that nothing about this overly long romance makes any sense, then welcome to the club!! It's an embarrassing and boring mess. And, even if you rightly hate PARNELL, at least you can't accuse that silly film of being boring!

Maybe because STRANGE CARGO, THE HUMAN COMEDY and A GUY NAMED JOE dealt with whimsy and religious fantasy successfully, MGM kept trying with this kind of picture. But HIGH BARBAREE and ADVENTURE (both based on what must have been gassy novels) are dull failures.I must dissent with the majority view here that ADVENTURE is good and that Clark Gable and Greer Garson are good in it. They are a dismal mismatch as a romantic team and neither is suited to this kind of heavy, 'meaningful' material. In their very different ways, both stars were grounded, practical, sensible, which is not what was needed to bring off this type of romantic fantasy. When they meet and for a long time after, Gable and Garson give too successful an impression of mutual loathing for us to believe later that they have suddenly discovered their great love for each other. Victor Fleming does a very glossy professional job directing this film and both stars get dazzling, dynamically framed closeups and two-shots, but they never seem right for each other. By contrast, in a supporting role, Joan Blondell seems exactly right for Gable, being his female equivalent, having humor and a juicy kind of sensuality.ADVENTURE is anything but, and the mystical themes never make any sense and are never convincingly connected to the romance. It was a big hit, presumably because people were curious to see these stars together, and to catch Gable's first picture after the war. But this could only have diminished the luster of both of them. And pictures like this must be why Dore Schary was brought into the studio to supplant Louis B. Mayer, who had become lazy and complacent, squandering his two biggest stars on pretentious garbage.