Taken as a diverting bit of fluff, "Saratoga" is a pleasant film not worthy of the talents of its cast but easy on the eyes. The plot is in the screwball vein but lacking the manic intensity of the genre; it revolves around a bookie trying to save a horse farm by luring a rich "chump" to lose racing bets & finance the endeavor. Clark Gable, looking alarmingly thin, is the bookie and he delivers his standard performance. Scenery-chewing Lionel Barrymore and blustering Frank Morgan are on hand playing characters they perfected during their careers. Also on board are Una Merkel, Walter Pidgeon, and in a bit role Dennis O'Keefe. Unfortunately all of this is secondary to the only reason this film merits attention: it is the final film of legendary Jean Harlow. The tragedy of Miss Harlow has been well documented. She was literally dying while shooting this movie and it is a difficult film to sit through knowing this. In the final 20-25 minutes her character is clearly played by a double hidden behind binoculars, a large hat, or shot from behind. Nobody wanted to finish the movie after Miss Harlow passed away but there was such an outcry from her fans that the picture was completed by a heavy- hearted studio. Ironically it was her biggest hit film largely because everyone wanted to get a final glimpse of her. Her performance is not one of her best; she is lacking her usual energy & effervescence. But it is an incredibly poignant performance knowing the terrible physical pain she must have been suffering during the shoot. By all accounts Jean Harlow was an amazing individual; beloved by all and someone who valued the happiness of others over her own. She was more concerned about letting the cast & crew of "Saratoga" down than getting help for her illness. A class act to the end.

"Saratoga" (1937) directed by Jack Conway, where Jean Harlow in a scene is putting face powder during a break at the horses race on Churchill Downs and she is enough interesting as character seen from her back as style and ritual of acting, as repetitive gesture of the women in instinctive standing before society with nothing to do after the end of a given race. A trip by train and sleeping at night after talking, it is another scene of anthology from the thirties or also another, where all people around approaching, inside a saloon near the room of her, listening by the radio transmission which it seems a match of baseball, but it is a race horsing for gamblers broadcast from the stadium, interrupting their domestic activities for hearing the results of the winning horse, each time screaming as little boys. Both scenes for instance were moments of social conviviality, among bosses and employees in this comedy of happiness, waiting for the next as though nothing happened out of racing horses, except the mental health of this young woman, daughter of a land owner with horses for races. The sense of a reasonable attitude is at stake, when the daughter of the owner of racing horses refuses to take medication, before the diagnostic made by the physician in her room after a break in her health. Refusing even the recommendation of staying alone on the bed, without too much light in the room by day, because her lack of sleeping when anguish and the turmoil of her own life are surrounded by friends of these quality and glamor, by whom they care after all for her better health. It is quite instructive knowing, how it is possible after such a last derby, what of either horses won really at the place of the other ; because, at first sight, it's impossible by the line of departure directly from the stadium itself during the race. The scene where is projecting a documentary, in a special session and where the viewers were a group of friends from the horses racing, with the main characters of this fiction movie there : it is almost unbelievable of happiness for the time, with smiles in every figure and particularly of the daughter of the horses farmer, for racing in such derbies and it works well as satisfactory behavior among them, when they discovered the small difference between the winner and the second place, by the slow motion at least on the last seconds, frame by frame on the screen projection with Moon Ray in second place, viewed by them in a special room aside the stadium, like a kind of referees from this distinguished people belonging to high society.

This movie is a real treat for classic movie lovers! The star-studded cast includes Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Hattie McDaniel and Lionel Barrymore. It is especially interesting for all Gone With The Wind lovers to see Hattie McDaniel (Mammy) and Clark Gable (Rhett) work together two years prior to GWTW. Jean Harlow is absolutely beautiful and really shows her acting talent in this movie. It is bittersweet to watch though, considering this was Harlow's last film. The actress worked as long as she could until the physical pain of her illness became too much and she passed away at a very young age before filming completed. The stand-in scenes are very obvious, but fortunately doesn't take away from the magic that Ms. Harlow contributed and therefore set a tone for the movie.I love this movie, and highly recommend to anyone who wants a good storyline w/ wonderful star quality!!!

'Saratoga' was one of Hollywood's biggest box-office hits of 1937, but an explanation is in order. The film was scheduled to star MGM's popular team of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, but Harlow died suddenly (of uraemia, aged only 26) while 'Saratoga' was in production. Her fans demanded that MGM honour Harlow's memory by completing the movie; when it was released, hordes went to see 'Saratoga' and bid farewell to their platinum blonde. Ironically, this movie made far more money (on the strength of Harlow's death) than it would have been likely to earn had she lived to complete it.'Saratoga' is a comedy, yet a weird morbidity hovers over this film. Harlow's character's father is played by Jonathan Hale, who later committed suicide. Gable has a bizarre scene in a racehorses' cemetery, appropriately spooky. (Although the gravestones are too close together.) The scenes left unfilmed at Harlow's death were completed with three different actresses doubling for her: a body double, a face double, and a voice double dubbing her dialogue. The doubling is laughably inept, even by 1937 standards.Several film critics have claimed that we'll never know how great 'Saratoga' would have been had Harlow completed it. That's rubbish, that is. For the first two-thirds of the film -- with the possible exception of one shot in which she pushes her way through a crowd of punters, with her back to the camera -- it's clear that Harlow did all of her own scenes. By the two-thirds mark, 'Saratoga' has failed to register as a classic on the level of 'Red Dust' or 'Dinner at Eight'. There's nothing in the film's first five reels to indicate that this movie would have attained greatness if only Harlow had completed it. This is just one more Gable/Harlow comedy: an enjoyable one, but nowhere near so good as 'Red Dust' or even 'Bombshell'.I find it intriguing that all of Harlow's doubled sequences are in the last one-third of the movie, as this indicates that 'Saratoga' was shot roughly in sequence. Ironically, the last line that Harlow speaks on screen (two-thirds into this movie) is 'Good-bye'. From here to the last reel, her character is strangely taciturn, always holding field glasses or some other object in front of her face so that we can't get a good squizz at the unconvincing double (actress Mary Dees). Harlow's character appears to have been written out of some late scenes in which one might expect her to appear. But the very last shot of the movie reveals Harlow herself, with Gable and Una Merkel, reprising a song from earlier in the movie: 'The Horse with the Dreamy Eyes'. I wonder if this shot was repositioned from earlier in the film, in order to ensure that the movie would end with a close-up of the real Jean Harlow.I always find Una Merkel deeply annoying, and here she's worse than usual. She does a bump-and-grind routine, thrusting her pelvis towards us while glancing indignantly backwards over her shoulder, pretending that she's been shoved forward by someone standing behind her. Get some voice lessons, Merkel.Gable's character is identified as a 'bookie', which may surprise modern viewers in America. Gable is portraying what is known in Britain as a 'turf accountant'. These are independent bookmakers who lawfully take bets at a racetrack, without participating in the pari-mutuel pool. Such people no longer exist Stateside but were carefully vetted by racing commissions in the 1930s. One of the rules for their profession was that a bookie could not own shares in a racehorse. In 'Saratoga', deep-pockets Gable buys a thoroughbred as a gift for Lionel Barrymore, playing Harlow's grandfather. If a bookie had tried this in real life, there would have been legitimate protests of a conflict of interest.Gable is his usual sly rogue here, with an amusing running gag in which he keeps telling various men and women: 'I love ya.' The payoff is clever. These shots were edited into a very funny montage in 'That's Entertainment, Part Two'. 'Saratoga' benefits from MGM's usual high production standards, and an excellent supporting cast ... including Charley Foy, Margaret Hamilton, Hattie McDaniel, Frank Morgan (less annoying than usual) and MGM's stalwart character actor Cliff Edwards. I enjoyed 'Saratoga' and I'll rate it 7 out of 10 ... but it's hardly a classic, and I'm confident that it would not have been one even if Harlow had completed it.