Now Playiing: "The Story of Temple Drake" (1933)

"I've seen three generations of them in my time.  They're a stiff neck lot, most of them.  Proud and all that.  There's a wild streak in them.  Every now and then, one of them comes along like Temple -- with something bad in them.  Something wrong.  Maybe Temple will get over it but there's not one of them that's had it, didn't end up in the gutter."

No Pre-Code movie list is complete without The Story of Temple Drake and there's a very good reason for that.  The picture is in a class by itself insofar as the seamy, sleazy and gritty nature - - never mind the fact that it, coupled with Convention City, a sex comedy, helped to bring on the Production Code and usher in a new era of filmmaking.

 The Story of Temple Drake is based on a William Faulkner work called "Sanctuary," which is about the rape and abduction of a Mississippi college age girl from a prominent local family.   Published in 1931, "Sanctuary" was Faulkner's critical and commercial breakthrough but the novel was highly controversial due to its overriding theme of rape.  While it was generally agreed that the book proved Faulkner was a highly talented writer, most reviewers found the book horrific.  While the general consensus in Hollywood, an industry that always kept one eye on those bestselling and/or notorious works, was that "Sanctuary" was unfilmable, Paramount had no such qualms.

Flush with stars at the time but cash strapped, Paramount snapped up the rights to the story and cast Miriam  Hopkins, who had created quite a stir in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Trouble in Paradise, in the title role.  Not coincidentally, both pictures made a tidy profit for her studio.  Her popularity alone didn't make Miriam a perfect fit for the role of Temple - - like Temple, she too was a Southern belle (born in Savannah, Georgia and raised in nearby Bainbridge, Georgia), descended from a wealthy and notable family (her great-grandfather was the fourth mayor of Bainbridge and helped establish the local Episcopal church).  She possessed the wild, carefree beauty that Temple had; Miriam could also portray longing, abject fright, and sad resignation.

Surely someone named Trigger is trustworthy

Perhaps the most important part outside of the title character was the role of Trigger, the man who rapes and abducts Temple.  Called "Popeye" in Faulkner's book, the name was changed for obvious copyright reasons.  Paramount assigned the part to George Raft, who was making a name for himself in the parts of gangsters and heavies.  In fact, Scarface, in which he portrayed coin-flipping Guino Rinaldo, released the year before Temple Drake made Raft into a star.  He, however, wanted nothing to do with Temple Drake, feeling that Trigger was a sadist and playing such a role would ruin his reputation and effectively finish his career.  His biographer claims that Raft told Paramount he would the film only if the studio put $2 million into his account, a not-so little insurance policy to support him if the film did indeed torpedo his burgeoning career.  Instead, Paramount put him on suspension in February of 1933 and cast instead Jack La Rue, an actor who had been cast in Scarface but, due to his deep voice and height, had been replaced by -- you guessed it -- George Raft.  

As fair warning, spoilers lay ahead!

Nothing good can come of this

The opening credits of Temple Drake give us glimpses into what's to come, with the dark, moody lighting and the flashes of the broken down, decrepit house.

The first we see of Temple isn't actually all of her but rather her arm as she's attempting to wrangle herself away from a date at three a.m. by getting through the front door.  It's clear that she's laughing and having a wonderful time, while her date is anxious to continue what they've started.  When she does make it through the door, she's literally on fire with the empowerment of control -- sexual and otherwise.  Her grandfather, who is her guardian and also judge of their town, tries to reprimand her for staying out late and, in general, being wild but she quickly wraps him around her finger.  It's clear that she has been doing this - - wrapping males around her finger -- for a long time.

Temple playing with one of her dates

She's presented to viewers as basically a good girl but a flirt or a tease.  She enjoys playing games with her many dates but she apparently stops short of ever allowing them their way or consummating the relationships.  Life for Temple Drake, up to this point, has been nothing but fun with little to nothing raining on her parade.  It's only fitting that when tragedy (or comeuppance as some might see it) strikes, it does so with an actual lightning strike and terrible rainstorm.

Attorney Stephen Benbow has been in love with Temple, as apparently are most of the men in their town, and even proposed to her in the past but she has refused him.  She obviously likes him a great deal, if not feels romantically toward him, but rebuffs him because she believes she is "no good."  As town gossips speak freely about how "wild" Temple is, we have to assume that she believes this because she's heard it for so long.  And also because Stephen, as a straitlaced and very responsible young man who works with her grandfather and sits at home with his elderly aunt and helps her knit, is deadly dull in her eyes.  It's another confrontation with Stephen, during a dance, that starts the ball rolling into her eventual downfall.

Temple and Stephen before the literal storm

Desperate to escape Stephen's pleas for matrimony, monogamy, and fidelity, Temple leaves the shindig with a drunken acquaintance named Toddy who, in short order, manages to crack up their car and get them picked up by the menacing looking Trigger and clearly stunted Tommy who take them back to the rundown house seen in the opening credits.  She isn't keen to accompany them into the woods and back to their place but Toddy, not drunk enough, only wants another drink and has no issue busting into the bizarre band of redneck-y characters that are playing a game of cards in the house.  All the males, except for Toddy, are leering at Temple in such a way that watching the picture today, more than 80 years after it was filmed, is an uncomfortable experience.  Things will only get worse.

Toddy is knocked unconscious when he attempts to defend Temple and her honor from one of them, who wants the pretty college girl, dressed in sheer, wet clothing, to sit on his lap.  As all the men in the house are due to take a truck into "the city,"  Trigger - - clearly the alpha male -- decides that Toddy will be carried out to the truck and taken to the city but Temple will stay put.  The only woman in the house, an old-before-her-time and understandably bitter Ruby, who is forced to wait on the men (one of whom is her maybe legal husband) and keep her baby, whom she refers to as "it," in the wood box so "the rats don't get it," has a mixture of both pity and resentment to the classy Temple.  She's jealous of Temple, warning her to stay away from Ruby's own man, condescending of Temple, lecturing her about the type of girl -- tease -- she is, but also tries to protect her by sending her to the barn, with Tommy, to sleep as Trigger has stayed behind.

Ruby is having none of Temple's angst 

Up to this point, the film has been dark and utterly disturbing.  Knowing the subject matter, and having heard about the infamous rape scene, waiting for it to come is almost unbearable.  The rain, with accompanying thunder and lightning, the spooky house, knowing that a bad man is hiding somewhere, along with the highly effective lighting, are all precursors to the horror movies that would see popularity in the 1970s and 1980s.  These scenes alone reminded me so much of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that I felt outright fear while watching.  The Story of Temple Drake did it first, and without a bit of gore.          

It turns out that while Tommy is "off," he's a decent enough person overall.  He sits in the barn with a gun to watch over Temple.

T

Uh oh

he next morning the sun is out and the mood of the picture lightens considerably - -but only very, very briefly.  We see feet heading to the barn and we're in no doubt that it's Trigger, who has apparently waited long enough to claim Temple and her virginity.  He skulks around the sleeping Tommy to pounce on his prize.  The scuffle awakens Tommy who, after poking his head around to see what's going on, is rewarded with a bullet to his head, killing him instantly.  We see Tommy fall, we see Trigger close the barn door and approach on the frozen Temple.  She screams and then the screen goes blank.

Next time we see her there is no doubt as to what happened.  She has tears streaming down her face and appears comatose in the car next to Trigger.  He apparently likes her and is taking her away to "the city," where he has a room in what is clearly a bordello.  He's going to turn Temple out.

Meanwhile, Ruby's partner, Goodwin, finds Tommy's body and notifies the sheriff, who immediately suspects that Goodwin himself is the killer and promptly arrests him.  Ruby saw Trigger driving off with Temple and correctly deduces that Trigger must have killed Tommy in order to snatch Temple.  Goodwin, afraid of Trigger's wrath, would rather stay mum and face the hangman than turn snitch on Trigger.

It's Stephen Benbow who is assigned to represent the indigent Goodwin and he eventually gets Ruby to tell him who actually shot Tommy.  He goes looking for Trigger at the "house of ill repute" and is shocked to find Temple there, lounging about in a negligee and clearly for hire.  Seeing that Trigger is prepared to shoot Stephen, she tells Stephen she went with Trigger willingly and is living with him, and working for him, willingly.  To further prove her point, she gives Trigger a bit, wet kiss.  Stephen is heartsick and leaves, but not before handing both of them a subpoena to appear in court.

Living in a bordello and dressed like this . . . hmmm.

It all becomes too much for Temple who packs up to leave Trigger.  Trigger, who actually believed that Temple might have feelings for him that don't include revulsion and outright hatred, tells her she will never leave and slugs her.  She shoots him with his own gun and takes off for home.

She goes to the courthouse, where her grandfather is upset that Stephen would actually subpoena his granddaughter for a trial involving someone like Goodwin.  Temple does not want to take the witness stand, even to save an innocent Goodwin from the hangman's noose, because then everyone will know how far she's fallen.  Stephen believes the right thing to do is provide testimony that she saw Trigger shoot Tommy but when he calls her to the stand, he cannot bring himself to ask, knowing that her reputation will be forever ruined.  It's Temple herself that tells the story and it's Temple who tells the judge that they cannot find or question Trigger because she killed him.  She then faints, as all proper ladies in the 1930s did when it just became too much.   Stephen scoops her up and tells her grandfather that he should be proud of her for what she did and fade out, with the assumption that Temple's reputation won't be permanently ruined and Stephen will marry her.

Temple on the witness stand

Not surprisingly, The Story of Temple Drake was banned in Pennsylvania and Ohio.  New York would only agree to show it if the scenes involving sex and violence were reduced to a minimum (seriously, was there much left to the film?)   So controversial was it that when the Hays Code went into effect, Joseph Breen ordered that the film never be re-released and the movie did not resurface for more than 20 years.

Amazingly, the film was reportedly significantly watered down in order to pass the censors in the first place.  As such, the film version is quite different than the story in the novel, which has very different endings for Temple, Stephen Benbow, Trigger, and Goodwin.

I found Miriam Hopkins to be perfectly cast in this role and absolutely mesmerizing.  Despite being 31 years old at the time of filming, she captures the flirtatious manner of the spoiled and aimless Temple as expertly as she captures the crushed, defeated, and resigned Temple post-rape.   Her face is such a masterful window of emotions that even with no speech following Stephen Benbow's defection after finding her and Trigger, the viewer knows very well that was the last straw.   The fact that she wasn't nominated for an Academy Award for this performance is infuriating and very likely more due to the scandalous and salacious story than anything else.

Jack La Rue as Trigger

It feels almost wrong to say this but I found Jack La Rue electrifying as Trigger.  The camera captured his menacing approach and focused on his deep, mesmerizing eyes.  He's a bad guy, no doubt, and probably has zero redeemable qualities but he's got that something.  Some say The Story of Temple Drake negatively impacted his career, as George Raft had predicted, but looking up his credits showed him working throughout the 1930s and 1940s and into the 1950s and 1960s.  Would he have become leading man material without Temple Drake?  That's a hard question to answer but La Rue was Bogart before Bogart was Bogart.


The Story of Temple Drake continues to create debate even to this day.   Was Temple a willing participant in her rape?  Did Trigger satisfy her bad-boy/bad-girl fantasies?  Was the rape merely an excuse for Temple to leave town and kick up her heels as a prostitute?  Did she kill Trigger because he had her motivations nailed?

Anything is possible.  Even before the Production Code was put into place, the censors in 1933 only allowed certain aspects to be shown and suggested.  It's too bad on the one hand but thank God on the other that the film was made when it was.  A year later, The Story of Temple Drake would never have seen the light of day, much less gotten to a soundstage.  It does make you wonder what pictures might have come out of Hollywood had the Production Code never existed, if The Story of Temple Drake is a model to base a theory on.

Regardless of what Temple's motivations may or may not have been, she's ultimately portrayed as a victim.  A victim of Trigger.  A victim of society and cultural norms at the time.  She's just an average gal at the start of the film, one that is enchanted by her own domination over men who really will do anything to sleep with her.  And one with natural and normal hormones and hormonal impulses.  Were she not in a small town in the late 1920s, when the story takes place, and not the granddaughter of Judge Drake, Temple could sow her wild oats and not be scandalized for it.   Were she allowed to do that, and not suffer the guilt of turning Stephen Benbow down because she's "no good" and can't promise that her urges won't impact their relationship, she may never have ended up in Trigger's path to begin with.

I find The Story of Temple Drake one of the most intriguing, puzzling, unsettling, and unusual of the Pre-Code era.   It's not a happy film and therefore not satisfying in the feel-good sense but it's brilliantly told and made, directed by the solid hand of Stephen Roberts, excellent camera work by Karl Struss, and wonderfully acted all around with the aforementioned Hopkins and La Rue, aided by Florence Eldridge as Ruby, William Gargan as Stephen Benbow and even a small part for the amazingly underrated Louise Beavers.   The New York Times, back in 1933, found The Story of Temple Drake to be "a highly intelligent production . . . grim and sordid but . . . enormously helped by its definite dramatic value."  

Interestingly, Miriam Hopkins had mixed feelings about the film in her later years, saying that she felt she needed to shower after viewing it for the first time in years and commending viewers in 1972 for sitting through it.

The Story of Temple Drake is not available on DVD as far as I know and is shown only rarely on TCM.  At one time it was available to view on Amazon Prime and was available in its entirely (75 minutes) on YouTube.  It's worth the search.

The Love and Losses of Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, Part 2

Part 1 of this series can be found here.

Compared to Clark Gable's childhood and upbringing, Carole Lombard's was almost fan magazine and publicist ready. She was born Jane Alice Peters on October 6, 1908 into a prominent Indiana family, the third child and only daughter of two parents who both descended from well-to-do families. Her father, Fred, was a golf and sports enthusiast; her mother Elizabeth, known as Bess, loved to attend theater, play tennis and put together social events, especially those for charities.  In Fort Wayne, Fred and Bess were often mentioned in the local paper for their participation in tournaments and hosting various events for the community.  Despite the united front, and possibly due in part to the separations necessitated by Fred's out of town travels for business and to participate in various golf tournaments, cracks would begin to show in their marriage.

Bess and her children

 Jane had a close and loving relationship with her mother, a woman she would grow to be very much like.  Although she was younger than both of her brothers, she was protective of them and was later remembered to stick up for them on the playground and in the street.  This strong will and feisty character would remain with her for life. She enjoyed a happy, relatively idyllic childhood, in spite of the continuing strain of her parents' marriage.  Following Jane's seventh birthday, Bess and the three children left Fort Wayne in the fall of 1915.  The quartet traveled to Los Angeles, ostensibly so that Bess could get a "rest," for a temporary visit.  This is born out by local newspaper reports at the time, which stated the trip was an "extended holiday" and by Bess herself, who told her church that she would return in time for Christmas.  Carole would later say that her mother planned for them to stay for six months; it seems the opportunities available and the far more agreeable weather, combined with the marital issues, led Bess to decide to make their move a permanent one.

Fred was apparently agreeable with Bess' decision.  The two never divorced, remaining legally separated and apparently friendly, with Fred providing continued financial support, thus allowing the family to live in comfort and without much worry.

Jane had been a pretty baby and grew into a very pretty and confident tomboy. She was twelve years old and playing baseball with friends when Allan Dwan spotted her.  Dwan was a director, producer and screenwriter; he had started his movie career on the east coast, as a scriptwriter for Essanay Studios, the studio primarily known for Charlie Chaplin's comedies. He would eventually operate Flying A Studios, one of the first motion picture studios in California and, in 1917, became the founding president of the East Coast Chapter of The Motion Picture Directors Association. By the time he first laid eyes on Jane Alice Peters, he had directed Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Gloria Swanson, among others, in successful films.  Dwan was not a negligible Hollywood player by any means.

Dwan was preparing the film A Perfect Crime and looking for a young girl to play the sister of actor Monte Blue.  He fairly easily convinced Bess to let her daughter enter the movie business and accept the part. Jane took to acting naturally and as Dwan would later say, she "ate up the acting business." Bess, always happy to see her children happy, encouraged her daughter to cultivate her talents and look for further work - -  although work did not materialize from the auditions the young girl attended.

A Perfect Crime

It wasn't until she was fifteen, and at her school's May Day Carnival, that opportunity came knocking for her once again, this time in the form of a scout for Charlie Chaplin, who wanted actresses to screen test for The Gold Rush.  She didn't get the part but The Vitagraph Film Company saw her screen test, liked what they saw and debated offering her a contract on the stipulation that she change her first name as "Jane" was considered too dull.  While the Vitagraph contract did not materialize, the teen did take their suggestion and adopt the first name "Carol," after a middle school classmate she had played tennis with.

In October of 1924, shortly before William Clark Gable made Josephine Dillon his first wife, sixteen year old Carol Peters was signed by Fox Film Corporation to her first contract.  It's unclear exactly how this contract came about but it's been suggested that Bess contacted gossip columnist Louella Parsons, who used her insiders to arrange a screen test for Carol.  However it came to be, Carol was signed to a $75 per week contract and officially called halt to her schooling in order to focus solely on her career.  While Fox liked her new first name of Carol, unlike Vitagraph, they thoroughly disliked "Peters" and suggested that she take on a new surname.  Her choice was Lombard, after a family friend.

The newly christened Carol Lombard enjoyed the photo shoots, costume fittings, socializing with actors on set and dancing at the Coconut Grove nightclub but she was less than satisfied with the early parts she was given at Fox. "All I had to do was simper prettily at the hero and scream with terror when he battled with the villain," she would later say.  Lombard had her sights set on much better quality acting.

That chance would come in March of 1925 when she was given a leading role opposite Edmund Lowe in Marriage in Transit.  Her performance was well received, with Carol being singled out by reviewers. Before she or the studio could properly digest this, her career would be interrupted by a serious car accident in which she was thrown through a windshield. The impact, cutting her face from her nose to her cheekbone, would result in twenty-five stitches across her left cheek and under her left eye, leaving scars (but fortunately not affecting her eyes or eyesight.)  To an actress, this was devastating as it could signify the end of her burgeoning career.  Carol, however, had tenacity enough for a dozen. The doctor tending her did not use anesthetic while sewing in the stitches so that the facial muscles would not relax. Despite this, she was left with an angry, red scar and so she underwent a surgical procedure to lessen its visibility. While recuperating from the accident, Carol had busied herself by studying motion picture photography; now, she applied that knowledge to understand how certain lighting could lessen the appearance of her scar.  She became an expert in the use of diffusing glass on the camera lens, enough to where she too could have become a cameraman or cinematographer. She also schooled herself on makeup applications and techniques so that she was a pro on her appearance.

As a Sennett Bathing Beauty

Unfortunately. the studio heads at Fox displayed extremely poor hindsight and judgment in feeling that despite her excellent reviews in Marriage in Transit, Carol Lombard had none of the qualities necessary to become a leading lady. They let her one year contract lapse in the fall of 1925.  She would go without work for the next year.

In 1927, she obtained a screen test for Mack Sennett, known as the "King of Comedy," due to his slapstick Keystone Cops shorts, pie throwing, wild car chases and his success at making comedienne Mabel Normand a major star.  Although Carol initially had reservations about performing slapstick, when she was offered a contract, she accepted, becoming one of the Sennett Bathing Beauties, joining such other future stars as Juanita Hansen, Marie Prevost and Phyllis Haver.  Her initial concerns would turn out to be unfounded, as she greatly enjoyed her time at the studio.  She would appear in fifteen short films between 1927 and 1929 and those films would give her invaluable experience into timing and comedy acting, something she would use to great advantage in the future.

Photographed by Edwin Bower Hesser, 1928

Sennett's films were distributed by Pathé Exchange, who liked Lombard and put her in feature movies beginning in 1928.  Her supporting roles in Show Folks and Ned McCobb's Daughter were singled out; the following year, Pathé upgraded her from supporting player to leading lady. The three films that followed, High Voltage, Big News and The Racketeer were all critical and commercial successes. Film Daily would state that Carol had "the stuff to go over."

Bill

After a brief return to Fox in 1930 to co-star in The Arizona Kid with Warner Baxter, Paramount Pictures recruited her and signed Carol to a $350 per week contract, gradually increasing to $3,600 per week by 1936.   She was put in a comedy with Buddy Rogers, then at the top of his game and who, in 1937, would marry America's Sweetheart Mary Pickford, called Safety in Numbers.  She was singled out as an "ace comedienne," and then assigned to star opposite one of Paramount's biggest (and most temperamental) stars, Miriam Hopkins, in Fast and Loose.  Hopkins would later play an important part in Lombard's only film teaming with Clark Gable. For Fast and Loose, Paramount mistakenly credited her as "Carole" and Lombard decided she liked this spelling better and kept it.  Thus was born her third and final professional name.

Bigger changes were to come with the second and third films she would make for Paramount in 1931. Man of the World and Ladies Man would both feature Paramount's leading male star, William Powell.

Powell, a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, had begun his career in vaudeville and stock companies. He had a success on Broadway before heading to Hollywood in 1922, where he would start off with small roles.  He had married a fellow actress in 1915 when he was twenty-three; with her, he would have his only child, a son. While the marriage would not survive - the couple divorced in 1930 - Bill's career became highly successful following his appearance as detective Philo Vance in 1929.

The honeymooners

Carole had been a fan of Bill's before they met, due to his debonair on-screen (and off-screen) personality and dashing good looks.  It wasn't long before the two were in a relationship.  They were an unusual pair; Powell was intellectual, sophisticated and sixteen years older than Carole, who was only twenty-two, wild and carefree.  Bill was gentlemanly and studious while Carole possessed a notoriously salty mouth -  something she had picked up from her older brothers, asking them to teach her curse words as a teenager in order to protect herself from men in the entertainment business who were less than upstanding.

Bill had been crazy about Carole, claiming he asked her to marry him every half hour until she agreed.  His persistence paid off and the couple were married on June 26, 1931 in Beverly Hills. The new bride would tell the media that it was their differences that made them work, a "perfect see-saw" of compatibility.  The Lombard-Powell marriage would bring a much higher level of fame to Carole although the marriage itself got off to a tricky start when she contracted influenza during their Hawaiian honeymoon that turned into pleurisy.  She would battle illness for the first year of their marriage, hardly an ideal beginning.

At home with Bill

Career wise, however, Carole was on a roll. She appeared in five films in both 1931 and 1932, pleasing critics who declared that she was well on her way to becoming a major star in her own right.  She did suffer through two flops - - No One Man and Sinners in the Sun - - but rebounded with Virtue and the adaptation of No More Orchids, based on the novel by Grace Perkins, who had also written the classic Night Nurse under the pen name Dora Macy (a film in which Gable starred with Barbara Stanwyck.)

It was upon completing No More Orchids that Carole was cast in No Man Of Her Own, in which she would play Connie, a small town librarian who becomes the wife of a gambler and con artist by the astounding name of Babe, who would eventually go straight thanks to her love (and maybe a little jail sentence).  In an ironic and somewhat gruesome foretelling of future events in the real life of Carole, the characters of Connie and Babe decide to let a coin toss determine their future.

Carole narrowly missed out on this role as Miriam Hopkins, originally offered the lead, balked over co-star Clark Gable getting top billing and insisted on being given another project, thereby opening the door for Lombard.

Gable too nearly didn't get the project as George Raft was Paramount's original choice for the role of Babe.  However, Marion Davies desperately wanted Bing Crosby for her next project, Going Hollywood, and with a little encouragement from her benefactor, William Randolph Hearst, convinced MGM to make a trade of Gable for Crosby.

Gable was sent to Paramount to work on a film of his choice.  With no projects in the pipeline at MGM, he leisurely looked over the available Paramount properties.  The only script he cared for was the adaptation of the Val Lewton novel titled No Bed Of Her Own.  Paramount was not run by a bunch of dummies and despite Raft's popularity, Gable was the up and coming star and they knew they would be foolish to not let him take his pick of roles and so the part was his.  The project would eventually be renamed No Man Of Her Own, after obvious censorship concerns.

Director Wesley Ruggles, just coming off his huge success with Cimarron, was tapped to helm the picture.  He would later recall being impressed by the work of Lombard and Gable, especially during the first half of the film, where there was a great deal of romantic comedy. Clark, he would say, was "a damn sight light better comedian than he ever got credit for being."  And Carole was a "revelation." Her work "didn't look like acting, it was so damn natural, so fresh."

Lombard, Gable and Mackaill

By all accounts, neither Lombard nor Gable gave too much thought to the other on the set of No Man Of Her Own. Both were smarting over loan out deals; Lombard had been loaned out by Paramount for her last two pictures, Gable by MGM for this film.  Both studios were pocketing $500 per week for their actors' services and both Carole and Clark felt slighted that they were not receiving the full amount the "borrowing" studio was paying for their services.

Both were also married to others at the time; Carole was very much in love with Bill and busy being the happy newlywed, with no reports that she engaged in any outside interests.  Other than her domestic life, she was single-minded with regard to her focus on her career.  Gable, who surely by the end of 1932, when No Man of Her Own was filmed, had a reputation for making time with his leading ladies on and off set, didn't bother trying with Carole. He had enough on his mind with his on-again, off-again affair with frequent co-star Joan Crawford and his less than ideal marriage and home life. Furthermore, he wasn't exactly sure he approved of his current leading lady's salty and colorful language, which was always on full audio display.

Despite their lack of romantic interest in the other, they had a good working relationship and friendly banter. Clark christened Carole with a nickname that would stick for life, calling her "Ma," something his film character did as well.  She retaliated by dubbing him "Pa."

Co-star Dorothy Mackaill, who had the part of Gable's former mistress in the film, recalled that Clark showed up on set one day with a Hoover button - - Election Day was fast approaching and MGM was encouraging its stars to vote for Hoover. Carole, Mackaill said, ripped the button from Clark's lapel and told him to "shove it up L.B. Mayer's ass."  Politics aside, you've got to love Carole.

On the last day of filming, Gable gifted Lombard with a pair of ballerina slippers, for the "true primadonna" of the set.  She was no slouch and gave him a large ham with his picture taped to the label.  Neither was offended by the other's gift and parted with a farewell kiss, on good terms.

It would take a third twist of fate, their paths crossing once again, at a Mayfair Club Ball to shake things up and shake them up in a major way.