Awesome Movie

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This romantic comedy has Jean Harlow billed over Clark Gable and the couple are a touch or two away from combustible. Sam Wood produces and directs. Con-man Eddie Hall(Gable)in hiding from his last sucker slips into the apartment of Ruby Adams(Harlow)...from that moment the flirting, the sharp banter and "come-hither" looks begin. A quick blackmail scheme involving one of Ruby's married admires backfires when the would be victim is punched out cold, real cold...like...dead. Eddie manages to escape during the confusion, but the platinum blonde Ruby is put away for a couple years. When Eddie finds out that there is going to be a little Eddie, he must find a way to reach Ruby in the reformatory. Eddie is determined to marry Ruby so their child will not be illegitimate. Others in the cast: Stuart Erwin, Dorothy Burgess, Garry Owen, Blanche Friderici and Barbara Barondess. Harlow and Gable made six films together and this movie shows why.

Hold Your Man finds Jean Harlow, working class girl from Brooklyn falling for con man Clark Gable and getting in all kinds of trouble. The film starts out as his film, but by the time it's over the emphasis definitely switches to her character.The film opens with Gable pulling a street con game with partner, Garry Owen and the mark yelling for the cops. As he's being chased Gable ducks into Harlow's apartment and being he's such a charming fellow, she shields him.Before long she's involved with him and unfortunately with his rackets. Gable, Harlow, and Owen try pulling a badger game on a drunken Paul Hurst, but then Gable won't go through with it. Of course when Hurst realizes it was a con, he's still sore and gets belligerent and Gable has to punch him out. But then he winds up dead outside Harlow's apartment and that platinum blond hair makes her easy to identify. She goes up on an accomplice to manslaughter.The rest of the film is her's and her adjustment to prison life. Her interaction with the other female prisoners give her some very good scenes. I think some of the material was later used for the MGM classic Caged.Harlow also gets to do the title song and it's done as torch style ballad, very popular back in those days. She talk/sings it in the manner of Sophie Tucker and quite well. Gable is well cast as the con man who develops a conscience, a part he'd play often, most notably in my favorite Gable film, Honky Tonk.Still it's Harlow who gets to shine in this film. I think it's one of the best she did at MGM, her fans should not miss it.

"Hold Your Man" is significant as Harlow's transitional film from the pre-code days. Although technically the Hays Code did not go into effect until July 1934, studios were to some extent trying to police themselves earlier than that to take some of the heat off. Harlow is significantly de-tuned physically here, from the hot presence a year earlier in "Red-Headed Woman" and "Red Dust". It also appears that to illustrate their ability to police themselves without a formal approval process, the studio tacked on a moralistic second half that turned a very entertaining romantic comedy into a sappy melodrama. The film begins when depression-era hustler Eddie (Clark Gable) and his pal Slim con a pedestrian out of $30. Running from the police he blunders into an apartment and finds Ruby (Harlow) taking a bath. Ruby turns out to be a bit of a con artist herself and gets rid of the police. Eddie takes off but he has made an impression on Ruby and she arranges an "accidental" meeting. They soon fall in love but their marriage plans are interrupted by Eddie's accidental murder of one of Ruby's marks. He gets away but Ruby gets two years in a reformatory, which is portrayed as an intense Home Economics class. Until it crashes and burns at the end this is a slick little romantic comedy written by Anita Loos (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes). Gable provides his standard bravado and Harlow gives it right back to him. The script is quite clever and entertaining. Gable does not have quite the chemistry with Harlow that he had with Claudette Colbert or Rosalind Russell, but this is the kind of film that is best when its two stars are competing instead of cuddling. Unfortunately the audience's identification impulse and emotional connection are casualties of Harlow's abrupt personality change from gritty seductress to dewy-eyed self-pitying victim. This confuses and distances those who were most involved in the story until that point. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

This is one of the very worst films Clark Gable made. Only PARNELL was obviously worse. It is just so painfully clichéd and the dialog is so lousy that it is something neither Gable nor Jean Harlow should have been proud of making.Gable is a heel whose illegal activities result in his girl going' to the slammer (like the gangster talk?). She holds out hope that he'll do the right thing but he just leaves her there--unknown to either of them, gosh, that she's "in the family way". Eventually, the rogue returns to do the right thing and somehow they tie this all together into a happy ending! They seemed to have forgotten about Gable's needing to take the rap and spend several years in the hoosegow. Leonard Maltin says "the stars are at their best here". By what standard? Best at producing unintended chuckles? Gimme a break!PS--after saying this, my wife thinks Leonard Maltin is going to find me and kick my butt. Hmmm. However, despite my comment, I think Mr. Maltin is the finest reviewer and human being on the planet (I hope that appeased him).UPDATE--2/2/08. Because I disliked this film so much the first time (especially the ridiculous ending), I decided to watch it once again. After all, sometimes when I watch a film again I like it much more and realize that I was a bit too harsh. While that has been the case with several films in recent months, I still disliked this film--even the second time. Most of it was not because of the first half of the film. In the first half, Harlow's character was amazingly stupid but at least it was believable. But when she was sent to prison, it was all clichés until the final ridiculous marriage scene occurred. The bottom line is that this sequence is embarrassingly dumb--it just makes no sense at all and is akin to turning the movie into some wacky fairy tale instead of a love story about two cons. I stand by my original review (despite all the "NOT HELPFULS") and think that aside from PARNELL and possibly POLLY AT THE CIRCUS, it might just be the worst Gable film.