No Man of Her Own (1932)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Beautiful, moving film.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Every film buff knows this title because it was the only film Clark Gable (in his pre-moustache days) and Carole Lombard (billed below the title alongside Other Woman Dorothy Mackaill) made together long before they married in 1939. Otherwise it would now be totally forgotten.Neither star is really at their best, and Gable in particular looks as if he can't really believe in any of this. It begins in classic pre-Code form with Ms Mackaill wearing a low-cut dress that would never have got past the Hays Office eighteen months later; while Gable bumptiously sending librarian Carole Lombard (sorry, didn't I tell you she plays a librarian in this?) to investigate a couple of books on a high shelf so that he can admire the view from where he's standing would probably be frowned on today. (The library set is terrific by the way.)Despite the title, marriage and morality kick in disappointingly quickly, and after the amusing but facile ending the pair of them are likely to find raising a family in Depression-era America an extremely uphill struggle after turning their backs on Gable's hitherto highly lucrative and satisfying career as a card shark; which nevertheless means that he will be attempting to sell himself on the labour market as an ex-con.

Good little film. Clark Gable once again plays the likable scoundrel role he does so well. This time he is Babe Stewart, a card shark who meets a small town girl (Carole Lombard), marries her on the flip of a coin, then realizes he'll have to change his ways if he wants to keep her. The script is well written, avoiding the melodramatic speeches and sappy dialogue that could have so easily been thrown into this kind of film. It also helps that the actors were able to play the characters naturally without hamming it up. Emotion is so much more believable when it's realistic. The supporting cast gives good performance as well, adding a bit of flavor to the film. A good script, good cast, and interesting enough storyline make this one worth watching.

No Man of Her Own is a pleasant film, nothing terribly bad or terribly good about it. It is remembered today as the only pairing of that star-crossed couple Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. At the time this was made Gable and Lombard were not an item. They became one about four or five years after No Man of Her Own was filmed. It's not on the top 10 list of either star.Gable is a gambler/con artist who's forced by circumstance to beat it out of New York and he flees for a small suburb where he meets librarian Carole Lombard and marries her. That's as far as I'm going with the telling of the plot.Lombard was with Paramount at the time this was made and Gable was on loan out from MGM. There's none of the Lombard we knew and loved in such classics as Twentieth Century or My Man Godfrey here. She's a pleasant enough screen heroine though. Gable does well in his part, but doesn't set the world on fire.If someone had only predicted that Gable and Lombard and their marriage would be come legendary. I'm sure they would have been given a much better film property. I always felt that if Lombard had not been killed in that plane crash in 1942 she would have eventually signed with MGM and L.B. Mayer would have paired her with Gable in the way Katharine Hepburn signed with MGM after the success of Woman of the Year with Spencer Tracy. You might have had a few films to remember Gable and Lombard by.

Oh, that was fun! No screwball action here but a lovable little romantic comedy, starring a ridiculously young and baby-faced Clark Gable as card-sharp 'Babe' Stewart, and a pre-stardom Carole Lombard as Connie Randall, the girl he marries on the flip of a coin: "Heads we... do it, tails--" "Tails we get married", Connie puts in, in a cheerful pre-Code gamble of her virtue, and tails it is. Babe the lifelong gambler gracefully pays up, and the challenge is on: judging by the post-coital scene in the sleeper car, he hasn't got such a bad bargain... but how long can he keep his new wife in happy ignorance of the crooked nature of the card-parties she helps to host?The film's title bears no particular relation to its plot, and the plot itself takes a couple of abrupt and apparently arbitrary turns to attain each scheduled set-up; but any degree of implausibility can be forgiven for the sake of the resulting comic situations, in particular the library scenes, where Babe tries to get Connie into bed with him on their first meeting, the 'getting-up' scene where Connie innocently ensures her husband is up and dressed in time for the fictional day job he has invented, and the finale where he launches into a vivid description of his supposed voyage from South America... in blissful ignorance that the truth is already out! There are relatively few laugh-out-loud moments, but the film has a sweetness of tone rarely found in later screwball comedies, with equal emphasis on the humour and the romance; it's clearly fond of its characters, and there were few moments when I wasn't either grinning with affection or amusement on their behalf.Gable and Lombard may have gone on individually to greater things, but "No Man of Her Own" remains a thoroughly enjoyable piece of fluff, worth watching for more than just the one-off pairing of its stars. Forget all logic and likelihood, ignore the occasional unevenness, and just sit down and enjoy.