Product Details

• Actors: Clark Gable, Edward Arnold, Norma Shearer
• Directors: Clarence Brown
• Format: Black & White, DVD, Full Screen, 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: 106 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002978WFC
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,419 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Idiot's Delight" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very Stagey, But The Material Still Resonates, December 10, 2002

By 

Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Idiot's Delight [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning IDIOT'S DELIGHT was one of the great play of Broadway's "golden age of drama" in the 1930s: starring stage greats Lunt and Fontanne, it told a darkly comic tale of a group of people staying at an Alpine hotel--including small-time nightclub performer Harry Van and con-artist and sometime entertainer Irene, the latter passing herself off as a Russian of noble birth--whose largely shallow lives create a ridiculous and often disturbing counterpoint to the world as it edges toward war.

Unfortunately, and although it is fairly faithful the the stage original, the screen version of IDIOT'S DELIGHT is nothing to write home about, and not even starpower saves it; indeed, it proved one of Gable or Shearer's few box office failures. There are several reasons for this, but the overall problem is that the production has the feel of a filmed stage play rather than of a movie; director Clarence Brown fails to endow the production with anything approaching a cinematic quality. The cast is also problematic. Although he delivers a surprisingly effective song-and-dance turn with "Puttin' on the Ritz"--the only musical number he ever performed on screen--Gable is essentially miscast as Harry Van; Norma Shearer, almost unrecognizable in a blonde wig, is relentlessly over the top in her performance as the fake countess; and even the usually reliable Burgess Meredith (along with most of the supporting cast) seems overblown and stagey, as if he were playing to the balcony instead of the camera.

But in spite of these significant drawbacks, the disturbing nature of Sherwood's story still packs enough of a punch for us to recognize how powerful the material itself is, and the vision of fools dancing recklessly on the edge of war has clear resonation today. Still, unless you are die-hard Gable or Shearer fan, you might prefer to catch this one on the late-late show instead of purchasing the expensive and out-of-print tape.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars HARRY VAN AND LES BLONDES., September 11, 2002

By 

"scotsladdie" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Idiot's Delight [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Gable is a burlesque hoofer who, following WWI, takes a job as an assistant to an alcoholic mind-reader, played by Laura Hope Crews. He and Crews practice a "code" whereby Gable relates information about the person asking questions in the audience to the blindfolded medium, thus allowing her to render intelligent answers. Crews is so drunk that she confuses the "tips" Gable gives her and mixes up her answers so that she and Gable are booed offstage, especially when ingenue Shearer, waiting in the wings, cues the drunken medium so loudly that the audience hears it. Years later, Gable and Shearer meet again in an Alpine hotel named the MONTI LODI en route to Geneva and amusing antics ensue. The kind of humour displayed in Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer-Prize winning play (which starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne on Broadway) and this film all but perished after the 1930's: broad, extravagant comedy requiring a perception of the double entendre and some literary background on the part of the viewer.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Clark Gable had..., May 17, 2010

By 

Jane Pensive "a film fan" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Idiot's Delight (DVD)

more charm than any man should be allowed. From his self-effacing grin, clipped moustache, dimples, and broooad shoulders he is the compleat movie star. Although not known for his dancing skills, he looks smart dancing to "Puttin' on the Ritz," with his bevy of blonde show girls (watch for Virgina Grey, Gable's long time on again off again girlfriend, as the most elegant of Les Blondes). Gable has a great match in leading lady Norma Shearer. She is always in character whether an acrobat from Omaha, or a Russian countess who escaped the "Bolsheviki" by the skin of her teeth in a variety of scenarios.

The script is an interesting take on the coming of WWII. Made in the magical movie year of 1939 ("Gone with the Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," "Stagecoach," etc) in retrospect we know the cause of the war was nazi fanaticism and not greedy munitions manufacturers, the story is still absorbing and not at all ridiculous. Along with stars Gable and Shearer, a great supporting cast (Joseph Schildkraut, Laura Hope Crews, Edward Arnold, Charles Coburn, etc) and expert direction by Clarence Brown makes "Idiot's Delight" a fun couple of hours. If you are lucky, both endings (domestic and international) will be included.