"Manhattan Melodrama" is the only movie that Clark Gable and William Powell made together. They're wonderful in this film, but MGM and other Hollywood studios couldn't afford to use two of their top male stars in the same shows very often. Besides, few films called for two leads as co-stars, and the studio wasn't about to cast a star lower while he was still on top. I wonder if either actor would have agreed to such, given the opportunity. So, we have this one film of the two great actors sharing the spotlight, and it comes off very well. That's probably because the film is able to break the story into three parts. One for each actor and one with both of them together. That was largely possible because of the plot. Boyhood friends grow up and take opposite paths. One is a criminal and other an honest attorney and politician. Others describe the plot in more detail. This is a very good story in a very good film. It begins when the boys are young and friends. They both become orphaned by a passenger ferry sinking. Mickey Rooney plays Blackie as a Boy. Gable is the grownup Blackie, and Powell plays Jim Wade. Besides the interesting story and the friendship that continues – albeit at a distance in later years, this is a movie with an example, if not a moral, about integrity and honesty all the way. Nowhere is such honor better displayed than in the ending, which is a nice surprise, Although Gable and Powell had only this one film between them, female co-star Myrna Loy had many more films with both actors. She co- starred in seven films will Gable, comedy-romance, adventure and dramas. And, she made 13 movies with Powell – the most well known of which were a series of Thin Man movies. But, a few of their comedies are among the funniest movies ever made. Comedy buffs especially may want to check these out: "Libeled Lady" of 1936," "Double Wedding" of 1937, "I Love You Again" of 1940, and "Love Crazy" of 1941. The latter is one of the very funniest films of all time.

A very aptly named film, this is a fairly entertaining, if overblown, tale. The script, written by Oliver H.P. Garrett and Joseph L. Mankiewicz based on a story by Arthur Caesar, tells the familiar story of two childhood friends, one of whom grows up to be a respectable citizen who attains high political office (two things which are often mutually exclusive in real life) and one of whom grows up to be a career criminal. Admittedly, it was far less familiar in 1934 than it is today. The film is rather well directed by W.S. Van Dyke but it's not on the same level as in the "Thin Man" films. The film earned a special place in history as, after John Dillinger attended a screening of it in Chicago on July 22, 1934, he was gunned down by the FBI.The film stars Clark Gable and William Powell as the gangster and illegal casino owner Edward J. "Blackie" Gallagher and William Powell as the Manhattan District Attorney turned Governor of New York James W. "Jim" Wade respectively. Oddly enough, Powell was Carole Lombard's first husband while Gable later became her second. Both performances are good but neither is on the same level as their best work. Having been orphaned in the General Slocum disaster on June 15, 1904, Jim took the younger Blackie under his wing and attempted to keep him on the straight and narrow. Needless to say, his efforts did not meet with much success. In spite of the fact that he commits murder to ensure Jim's election to the governorship, Blackie is a rather likable character. His eternal loyalty to Jim is quite touching. It does not really ring true but then again I don't think that the developments in any film which actually includes the word "melodrama" in the title are intended to be realistic! A bigger problem is that said developments are not executed as entertainingly as they could have been.Myrna Loy is strong as Eleanor Parker, who starts off as Blackie's girlfriend but later starts a relationship with Jim and eventually marries him. If I were her, I'd have probably made the same choice. At the risk of repeating myself, Loy was likewise better in other films. While she and Gable do not have much in the way of chemistry, her more light-hearted early scenes with Powell are electrifying. This was their first of 14 films together over the course of the next 13 years, most notably in the "Thin Man" film series. They worked so well together that many people though that they were married in real life. Nat Pendleton, another "Thin Man" alumnus, provides much of the comic relief as Blackie's dimwitted henchman Spud while the 14-year-old Mickey Rooney makes an early appearance as the young Blackie.Overall, this is quite a fun film. I hope Dillinger enjoyed it, though it certainly isn't worth dying for. He probably did not have the time to appreciate the irony of the last film that he watched involving the death of a famous gangster, what with the bullets flying around him and all. It's the sort of thing that I would find far-fetched if it happened in fiction, frankly.

I cannot believe anyone who is a gangster film fan, or a fan of Powell, Loy or Gable cannot love this film. First off, this film cannot be compared to a Warners Gangster Film, because those gangsters are much more hard core, and are unwilling to sacrifice anything to anybody (Except Johnny Sarto (Edward G. Robinson) in "Brother Orchid", and Patsy Gargan (Janes Cagney) in "Mayor From Hell"). It is actually very similar to "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" Where Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) sacrifices everything for the greater good. Blackie is not Rico Bandello, Tom Powers, or Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart in "The Petrified Forest"), totally evil characters, instead he is willing to sacrifice anything for his friend Jim (Totally evil people don't do that), and that includes (Spoilers): his chance for a relationship with Eleanor, when he essentially hands her over to Jim (The cab scene), kills for Jim, and is willing to die in the chair, and talks Jim out of commuting his sentence to life imprisonment, because he knew Jim was a decent man, with the potential for greatness. Powell is the real star of this movie. He is a real hero, who is unwilling to do the easy thing: (Spoilers Ahead) (Which likely would have led to the White House). Instead he resigns, because he got in office because of a murder, and thus knows it is the right thing to do (Unlike Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) in "Liberty Valance", who became Vice-President). What is interesting is how Eleanor reacts to him at the very end, and how it compares to Hallie Stoddard (Vera Miles). Eleanor is perhaps the most complex character in the film. She is one of a number of morally ambiguous characters Loy has played in her career: Evelyn Prentice, "Coco" ("Topaz"), Gertie Waxted ("Penthouse") to name a few. It helps to be familiar with Loy to totally understand her character. This is the middle phase of her career, where she gets what she wants, but has to compromise in order to get it. In the beginning, she has played some of the nastiest women in Motion Picture History such as Ursula Georgi ("Thirteen Women") or Fah Lo See ("The Mask Of Fu Manchu"), and paid the price at the end, before eventually moving on to Nora Charles, Connie Allenbury ("Libeled Lady") & Ann Barton ("Test Pilot"), all characters who get what they want (Particularly Connie), without giving an inch. This film is on my short list of the best gangster films ever made. Easy 10 of 10.

Yes, this is a melodrama all right. Two boys of very different backgrounds are orphaned when a pleasure steamer catches fire and sinks in the Hudson River near New York in 1902. One boy (Mickey Rooney) is a rough and tumble type, while the other is bookish and thoughtful. They are both briefly adopted together by a man who lost his son in the same disaster. They grow up together and then go their separate ways. The rough one, 'Blackie', becomes a criminal and is played by Clarke Gable. The bookish one becomes a lawyer and criminal prosecutor, played by William Powell. Blackie has a girlfriend, played by Myrna Loy, who leaves him for Powell. What is so especially fascinating about this film is that Myrna Loy and Clark Gable do not 'click' at all, and glaze over when they look at one another, despite their best acting efforts to simulate at least some flickers of passion. But as soon as Powell and Loy are on screen together, the fizz begins, and they spark off one another like two cheeky little flints who just can't wait to make wonderful fire together. Powell seems to have been an irresistibly amusing man who was attractive to all the most glamorous gals, despite not being all that good-looking. After all, he was married to Carole Lombard and then was about to marry Jean Harlow when she died tragically. (He paid $30,000 for her funeral and took six weeks off filming with Myrna Loy in another picture because of his uncontrollable grief.) So Powell certainly knew how to interact with women of character. Myrna Loy just had the right kind of wry and whimsical manner to complement the dry humour of Powell. From the moment they first look at each other in this first film together, a unique screen magic was born, and lasted through 14 films. When I knew her very slightly as a youngster, she was 57 and rather uncommunicative, and she seemed depressed, so I never knew the 'lively Loy'. In those days videos and DVDs did not exist, so few people of my age had any idea at all of what she had been like in her films with William Powell, as we had not only never seen any of them but had no way of doing so. Nor was there any internet with a handy IMDb database where you just click your mouse and see the list of her credits. The fact is, Myrna Loy was someone one knew had been a big movie star earlier on, but one had never actually seen her on screen. She was just a name, and someone who had been in films which one's parents had seen before one was born. Well, now we can see them and so many of them are good that we can at last see Myrna Loy in perspective and appreciate just how unique and special she really was. There is a curious thing, namely that her real name was Myrna Williams and she came from Montana. Now who does that remind you of? Why, Michelle Williams of course, who comes from Montana (see my reviews of LAND OF PLENTY and INCENDIARY, where I note that this girl is an actress of genius). I wonder if they could possibly be Montana kith and kin. But I guess the world is full of people named Williams, even in Montana, which has a population of just a few thousand people and a few million cattle, doesn't it? It seems that everywhere you go, there are people named Wiliams. Perhaps it is because they are plural. Oh, back to the story. I always forget the story. Well, you can see it coming, can't you? Powell ends up prosecuting Gable for murder and demands the death sentence. That part of the story is heavily contrived, but it works very well regardless because after all it is a 1930s movie. Loy is distressed because she loves them both. You can see where the melodrama comes in, and they really lay it on, as this is not a film where subtlety is a leading quality. We get the whole thing, death row, the last minute requests for a reprieve (oh yes, Powell is Governor of New York by now and is the one who gets begged to save Blackie's life). Well the melodrama just keeps piling on top of the melodrama like that, so that the film is really a kind of melodramatic club sandwich. There is some cheese and then there's some ham (in fact there is no shortage of ham in this film) and then there's some chicken when certain persons lose their courage and then there's some lettuce to brighten and pretty things up a bit, and then there's the daily bread, it's all there. Take a bite, it's really delicious.