Product Details

• Actors: Clark Gable, Marion Davies, Allen Jenkins
• Directors: Lloyd Bacon
• Format: Black & White, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Warner Bros.
• DVD Release Date: June 22, 2009
• Run Time: 89 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002EAYDQQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #158,706 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Cain and Mabel" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Warner Bros. Digital Dist Release Date: 06/24/2011

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The comedy is OK but the musical numbers are grueling, November 27, 2009

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cain and Mabel (DVD)

I really loved Marion Davies in her silent films, but I've never liked her talking pictures that much as a whole. In this case, the plot is plucked from about a half dozen other 30's films that came before it, but the film does have Clark Gable going for it as well as those terrific contract Warner Brothers players.

The premise of this musical comedy is rather unbelievable. Waitress Mabel O'Dare is fired from her job for feeding a hungry unemployed publicist. He decides to help Mabel out by getting her a job in a Broadway show. The leading man pretends to be the show's producer as a gag, and tells Mabel she has the lead without even auditioning her. Unbelievable point number one - Mabel believes him. Unbelievable point number two - when she shows up and finds out she has no job, not even a spot in the chorus, the leading man and the producer feel so bad for her they do give her the lead, even though she's never danced or sung professionally before.

All of this I could live with, but then you have prizefighter Larry Cain (Clark Gable) and Mabel hating each other throughout two-thirds of the film for a multitude of mutual insults and injuries to one another. However, a single home-cooked pork chop by Mabel and her revelation to Larry that she used to be a waitress has him proposing inside of ten minutes? This is too much to swallow even for one of the screwball comedies of the thirties.

Finally there is the most tiresome part of the film, and that is the musical portion. There are two numbers that try to copy Busby Berkeley to some extent, but dance director Bobby Connelly doesn't seem to understand that you can't top Berkeley simply by building a taller set and a larger crane. Your numbers have to have some substance. The whole thing is haunted by the ghosts of the largely failed musical films of the late 20's and very early 30's with tableaus and spectacles that are just plain boring. If these numbers had just been removed the film would have been much better.
Ironically this DVD-R also contains a trailer that spends much of its time boasting about the film's musical numbers.

The video has some scratchiness in portions, but overall I'd give it a B+. The audio is in very good shape.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Forgettable, January 4, 2011

By 

Dr. James Gardner (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cain and Mabel (DVD)

Cain and Mabel are Clark Gable and Marion Davies in a 1936 romantic comedy about a prize fighter and a showgirl, from Warner Brothers and directed by Lloyd Bacon.

Clark Gable (1901-60) was one of the biggest stars of the 20th century, and a pretty good actor to boot. He's best remembered as Rhett Butler for "GWTW" (1939), for which he received one of his three Oscar nominations (the other nomination was for 1935's "Mutiny on the Bounty" and he won in 1934 for "It Happened One Night"), but he gave us many memorable performances in films like "Teachers' Pet" (1958) and "But Not for Me" (1959) both of which earned him Golden Globe nominations. My favorite Gable flick is "Run Silent Run Deep" (1958).

In 1936 Gable was at the peak of his powers and in 1938 he was crowned "King of Hollywood" by his good friend Spencer Tracey. "Cain and Mabel" was his 32nd film. This was his second and final pairing with Marion Davies - they worked together on "Polly of the Circus" (1931).

Marion Davies (1897-1961) is best known as the mistress of William Randolph Hearst. She started in silent films in 1916 and first worked for Hearst in 1918. She moved between romantic comedies and lavish costume dramas, and when Hearst and Irving Thalberg quarreled, Hearst moved his Cosmopolitan Pictures from MGM to Warners, where this film was made. Following "Cain and Mabel" she made one more film in 1937 ("Ever Since Eve") and then retired.

The film co-stars Roscoe Karns as a publicity man and Allen Jenkins as Gable's trainer.

Roscoe Karns (1891-1970) was famous for his machine gun delivery, usually as the sidekick of the leading man. He's best known for films like "It Happened One Night" (1934), "His Girl Friday" (1940), and "Woman of the Year" (1942).

Allen Jenkin's (1900-1974) long face was seen in more than 100 films, often as a criminal, and including "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" (1932), "Dead End" (1937), and "The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse" (1938). He's best known for his recurring role as Muggsy in "The Red Skeleton Hour" (1954-62).

Lloyd Bacon (1889-1955) directs. Bacon directed more than 100 films between 1922 and 1954, the most famous of which are "42nd Street" (1933), "A Slight Case of Murder" (1938), "Brother Orchid" (1940), and "Footsteps in the Dark" (1941). He was not typically known for any style, but as a working director who could make a film within budget and time constraints.

The film has nothing to recommend it. The plot is downright silly and Marion Davies, at the end of a long career, seems disinterested in the role, despite how yummy Clark Gable appears. The public apparently agreed. Despite the presence of Gable, who appeared in the years' #1 and #10 top grossing films ("San Francisco" and "Wife vs. Secretary"), the film didn't do well at the box office and it received no major Academy Award nominations.

Bear in mind, 1936 was a great year for films, with such memorable movies as Chaplin's "Modern Times", William Powell's bravura performance in "The Great Zigfield" (winner of Best Picture and Best Actress), Garbo's "Camille", Errol Flynn and Olivia deHaviland in "Charge of the Light Brigade", and Cukor's "Romeo and Juliette" in which a fading John Barrymore gave his last great performance. When measured against films like this, "Cain and Mabel" seems weak indeed.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Pork chops!", May 5, 2010

By 

CodeMaster Talon (Orlando, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cain and Mabel (DVD)

I sometimes think Marion Davies had the most interesting career of any female Hollywood star. Writer, producer, sometimes reluctant actress, she may not be remembered much today (for anything but the connection to Randolph Hearst) but in movies like "Cain and Mabel" you can still catch a glimpse of what might have been, had things been otherwise.

Davies is Mabel, waitress and wanna-be dancer. She meets up with a fast-talking reporter/wanna-be publicity agent Aloysius K. Reilly (wonderfully played by Roscoe Karns), who decides to make her a star, despite the fact that she isn't very talented and he had been contemplating suicide moments before they met. He wangles her into a Broadway show, but the show is floundering because the gal just isn't famous enough. Interestingly, boxer Larry Cain is having a hard time drawing a crowd to his fights because he isn't famous enough. To a mind like Aloysius K. Reilly's, there is only one solution to this problem: The two kids should embark on a steamy romance. The fact that they hate each other doesn't slow him down one bit.

From there its classic Old Hollywood plot, which is either silly or comforting, depending on what you like. The musical numbers are absurd, very Busby Berkeley-ish. There's some genuinely snappy dialogue and Davies, while sometimes appearing to lose interest in her character and the film in general, has an appealing quality hard to define. I just like her. And of course Clark Gable is always pretty sexy.

A sweet film well worth the DVD reissue, and a sure thing for Gable fans or those who prefer the slightly harder edge of Warner musicals to the MGM Dream Factory fluff (I love them both). I give it:

GRADE: B
Enjoy!