HONKY TONK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 148, 24 April 1942, Page 14

HONKY TONK

(M.G.M.)

HONK! TONK QUI MAL Y PENSE, as the French have it, and far be it from me to quarrel with the title of the film, which» bears as

much relation to the usual connotation of Honky Tonk as a milk-bar does to a gin palace. Not that the film is by any means milk and water, or even gin and it, though Lana Turner and Claire Trevor do their bit to supply the latter. It is rather one of those full-blooded pseudo-westerns in which sex is slightly more important than shooting. M.G.M. have again hitched their waggon to a star rather then vice versa, and the result is, I suppose, to be regarded as a perfect vehicle for Gable. It’s even complete with a scene (right at the beginning this time) which as good as invites another 20 per cent. drop in underwear sales, by showing the famous Gable torso from all angles. You see, Gable is about to be tarred and feathered by the indignant populace because he knows rather more about most card games than they do, but with an agility reminiscent of Fairbanks in his (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) prime he leaps through a window on to a passing train and thus meets Lana Turner, blue-blooded from Bostori, who is on her way to Yellow Creek to meet her aged father. The aged father turns out to be our old friend Frank Morgan, a little spotty about the waistcoat, whom drink is gradually bringing lower and lower. By this time Clark Gable has decided that he’s tired of being run out of towns, and that he’s going te run one instead, so he starts up the Square Deal Gaming Saloon, where everything is on the level except the dance-floor (which goes up and down rather) and a Piece of Gable’s Past (Claire Trevor) who tries to do the dirty on Lana Turner, but who is later proved to be anatomically correct by having, strangely enough, a Heart in the Right Place. There’s a fair amount of shooting because the proprietor of the Crooked Deal Gaming Saloon takes exception to the Square Deal and has to be shot several times by Gable before he comes round to being one of Gable’s faithful henchmen. Meanwhile Lana Turner has succeeded in marrying Gable by getting him drunk, but he isn’t really house-trained yet because he still thinks doors should open Both Ways (rather like those swinging doors which M.G.M. provide for his gaming saloon, and for every other gaming saloon they construct) and he likes to feel there’s a quick getaway available in case he wants it. But the taming process is in full swing by the time Lana announces that she’s going to have a baby, and the news almost completes the business; and then there are a lot of close-ups of Clark Gable, chin in hand, thinking hard, and , looking rather as Neanderthal Man must have looked just about the time he began the long and painful ascent to Homo Sapiens. Well, by this time the honest citizens of Yellow Creek are tired of being run by Clark Gable, and, with the moral support of Frank Morgan, who thinks Gable is a Bad Influence for the lilywhite Lana, they propose to run him out instead. So one of Gable’s gang kills Frank Morgan, which isn’t such a bad’ thing because he’s sunk so low already that he scarcely needs to be buried. But it’s a nasty shock to Lana, who falls Dangerously Ill, and so there are a lot more close-ups of Gable thinking and getting worse at it all the time.

But the director fortunately rescues Gable from his difficulty by allowing Lana to Turn the Corner and by giving Gable an action sequence which enables him to show off his left punch, his trigger finger, the Gable smile, and even leads us to suspect there may be possibilities in the Gable ears. This display having pacified the citizens, who are all Gable fans once more, there seems no real reason why Gable should clear out, especially as he doesn’t know whether Lana is going to finish the corner-turning process. But clear out he does. However, Lana sensibly pursues him and brings him back alive, and we end with another close-up of Clark Gable, this time not alone, and it looks as though he has finally turned his back on the evolution business and is going to like being just a caveman after all.