Wife vs. Secretary

source: Wife vs. Secretary

Van (Clark Gable) is the boss of a magazine and wants to expand his circulation by buying out a rival. He travels abroad to seal the deal and spends most of his time with his secretary Whitey (Jean Harlow). There are several misunderstandings that leave his wife Linda (Myrna Loy) feeling neglected and betrayed and she files for divorce.... There is not much of a plot to this film and the story takes it's time to develop. Apart from the stupid names in this film - Van and Whitey....?? - the cast are good with special mention going to the women. There are interesting sets to look at and memorable scenes include the bedroom scene between Gable and Harlow in Cuba, the confrontation between Harlow and Loy, and the ending. As Harlow seems to be in most of the memorable scenes, I think she comes off best in the film, despite not being the "blonde bombshell" that she is famous for being. She's not that blonde! The film drags and then, all of a sudden, it gets good towards the end with Harlow in all the good scenes. As regards the story, it's waifer-thin but I have to mention May Robson's role as Van's mother, "Mimi". What a bitch! She pulls her son's wife aside and poisons her mind with ideas of a fictional affair between him and his secretary. Bloody cow! Despite the film taking ages to get to the confrontational scenes that we are waiting for, it gets there in the end and you are left feeling that the film has been worth it.

It's Rolls Royce MGM hitting on all eight cylinders— lavish interiors, pretty people, well- upholstered crowds, and sprightly dialog. So who can ask for more. Not me. Gable's a hard- driving top executive with a super efficient secretary (Harlow) and a loving wife at home (Loy). Trouble is, he spends all his time making deals and neglecting his patient wife. At the office he depends a lot on the fetching Harlow, slowly making wife Loy suspicious. But getting his attention is difficult since he's so wrapped up in the latest big deal. Thus, straightening things out in expected Hollywood manner makes up the narrative. Gable's at his charming energetic best, while Harlow gets an unusual non-vampish role, and Loy is winning in the sympathetic wifely part. Together, their characters are uniformly likable, unusual for what may be a romantic triangle. It's not hard seeing why Gable made six films with the star-crossed Harlow. There's real chemistry at work between them. Also, a boyish Jimmy Stewart turns up in an early supporting role as Harlow's sometimes swain. Not surprising for the 30's, the business world is portrayed as tricky, at best. Anyway, director Brown keeps things moving in smooth fashion, so all the talk seldom palls. Overall, it's a slickly entertaining 90-minutes featuring three legends of their time and our own.

Clark Gable stars in this comedy as Van Stanhope, a successful magazine executive who is happily married to his wife Linda(played By Myrna Loy). When Van hires a new secretary, the beautiful Whitey(played by Jean Harlow) Linda tries not to be jealous, but even Van's mother warns her that Van may stray, just like his father did, because of temptation. Despite the fact that Whitey has a boyfriend(a young Jimmy Stewart!) Linda becomes convinced that there has been an affair, which threatens to break up the marriage, despite denials... Good actors can't overcome obvious and predictable comedy that isn't funny enough to make it work either. Notable only for the cast.

A lot of this is typical 1930s melodrama. The story continues because various of the characters fail to have the obvious conversations, which would have cleared things up in a jiffy. The scene I found particularly interesting and innovative was the penultimate one. In the third from the end scene, Harlow shows up in Loy's stateroom aboard the French Liner ship she is planning to take to Europe to forget about her husband (Gable), whom she imagines, incorrectly, to have had a fling with his secretary Harlow during a business trip to Havana. Harlow tells Loy that if she leaves Gable now, he will turn to Harlow out of loneliness and Loy will never get him back. (Yes, that sounds like the mother's speech to Norma Shearer in The Women.) Loy believes, incorrectly, that she has already lost Gable, so she says she won't go back to him. Harlow tells her that that would make her (Harlow) happy. The next scene takes place in Gable's office. He is talking with Harlow. We hear footsteps coming down the hall outside. Footsteps that take a long time. It turns out that they belong to the cleaning lady. Then, when she leaves, we hear footsteps again, very assertive footsteps, for a long time. Harlow gets up - she suspects it is Loy, come to return to her husband. And this time it is. Harlow then walks through the next, large office - more long footsteps - and leaves. The use of the footsteps is really very impressive.

Clark Gable gives a giddy, frisky performance as a happily-married magazine magnate in New York City who works closely but professionally with efficient though somewhat demure secretary Jean Harlow; his wife (Myrna Loy) and her fiancée (James Stewart) misconstrue the business-only relationship as something more vital, and pretty soon a subtle attraction does develop between the two workaholics during a conference trip in Havana. Carefully elongated from a women's magazine short story, the screenplay here hits on some issues regarding even satisfying marriages which are still relevant today (mostly that gossip breeds mistrust, and it can come from all corners); still, it doesn't give Gable much to do except talk fast at the office and kiss Myrna in doorways. Loy suffers rather ridiculously (after discovering her hubby took his secretary along to Havana--she thinks in place of her--Loy refuses his calls and starts dressing like a widow!), but Gable obviously enjoyed working with her. Odd to find Harlow so low-keyed (her performance is really the only surprising thing the picture offers), but a Harlow without fizz is rather like a soda gone flat--tolerable, but disconcerting. **1/2 from ****

This is a beautifully written comedy/drama, very typical of the best of the late 1930's. But this movie illustrates how much it was a man's world and the wife is never to be involved in his business. When Van (Gable) is putting together this big magazine take-over, he completely shuts out his wife, which is why she does not understand why Whitey (Jean Harlow) is down in Havana instead of her. If he had only told her of his hush-hush plans, the whole misunderstanding wouldn't have happened! All of the actors are perfectly cast and do a wonderful job. This is exactly the kind of quality adult performance Jean Harlow was heading towards. What a tragedy she was dead within a year. This is also one of Clark Gable's best roles. He was excellent in this kind of light comedy/drama role...shame he didn't do more.

In New York, the magazine publisher Van "V.S." Stanhope (Clark Gable) and his beloved wife Linda (Myrna Loy) have been happily married for three years and are in love with each other. Van is a dynamic executive of the Stanhope Publications and works very close to his dedicated and efficient secretary Helen "Whitney" Wilson (Jean Harlow), who is a beautiful young woman engaged with Dave (James Stewart). When Van's mother Mimi (May Robson) poisons Linda about the relationship of her son with his secretary, Linda becomes jealous of her. Whitney and Dave have an argument and she breaks with him. Meanwhile Van is secretly planning to buy a magazine owned by Underwood (George Barbier) and Whitney helps him with the strategy. When Whitney discovers that the competitor Hanson House is also disputing the magazine, she travels to Havana to help Van to close the business with Underwood. They are well- succeeded in their intent and celebrate until late night. When Linda calls Van at 2:00 PM, Whitney answers the phone call and Linda believes that Van is really having an affair with Whitney. In the end, don't look for trouble where there isn't any because if you don't find it, you'll make it. "Wife vs. Secretary" is an adorable romantic comedy by Clarence Brown with Clark Gable, Jean Harlow and Myrna Loy in the lead roles. The intelligent screenplay is very well written, with funny situations. James Stewart in a supporting role in the beginning of his career has the final and most important line of this movie. The talented Jean Harlow passed away on the next year of cerebral edema caused by uremic poisoning, in a great loss for the cinema industry. My vote is eight. Title (Brazil): "Ciúmes" ("Jealousy")

I treasure this film for Jean Harlow's performance, capped by a magnificent, simple line reading: "You are a fool. For which I am grateful." She had amazing range for an actress who died at 26. Howard Hughes presented her in "Hell's Angels" (1930) as an amoral menace to civilization. (When she slips into "something comfortable" she actually puts on clothes.) It would be charitable to call her appearance in that picture acting. Yet within a couple of years she could dominate the screen by the force of genuine talent. Her starring career blazed briefly, but with almost no wasted roles. Here she gets to behave like a normal working class woman--not a débutante, nor a tenement dweller, nor a criminal's moll, nor a voracious mantrap, nor a comic banshee, nor an adventuress working the China Seas or Malay docksides. Clark Gable and Myrna Loy have more customary roles. A part this quiet remains a rarity for the winsome, brilliant, and doomed Harlow.

I had never seen Wife vs. Secretary until last year and because it was the only film that Clark Gable made with James Stewart, I wanted to see what these two would be like together. The closest Gable and Stewart have in the way of a scene together is at a roller rink where Gable has brought wife Myrna Loy and Stewart brought girlfriend Jean Harlow. Gable and Stewart are on opposite sides of the floor and never get together. It's not the best film Gable ever did with Harlow or Loy, but it's good fun. Basically Loy begins to have doubts about Gable's fidelity because the beautiful Ms. Harlow is his secretary. And the doubt is continually being reinforced by Loy's friends, a nasty group of gossips. Innocent events are continually being misinterpreted, but everyone is on the same page by the end of the movie. Gable was a big star by then, MGM's biggest. Too bad no one knew that Jimmy Stewart was also going to be a cinema legend or some scenes would have included them together.