Main Cast: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Walter Pidgeon, Walter Connolly, Leo Carrillo, Leo Carrillo
Release Year: 1938
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
Alternating effortlessly between comedy and suspense and back again, Too Hot to Handle stars Myrna Loy as a famous aviatrix and Clark Gable as an opportunistic newsreel photographer. Gable and rival shutterbug Walter Pidgeon agree to accompany Loy on her search for her missing brother, sensing a good story and excellent photo op. Their odyssey takes them into the deepest jungles of the Amazon, where Gable's photographic prowess saves everyone's lives when hostile natives attack. Along the way, both Gable and Pidgeon fall in love with Loy. The classic opening sequence in Too Hot to Handle, in which the resourceful Gable fakes a bombing raid for the benefit of his cameras, was allegedly conceived by Buster Keaton, then a free-lance MGM gag man. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
One of the most entertaining films of Clark Gable's career, and in its patchwork of styles and genres, it's also one of his strangest. Based on the careers of writers Len Hammond and Laurence Stallings with Movietone news, it begins as a witty satire of the newsreel business before turning into an adventure-romance-comedy that includes the memorable sight of Gable escaping from a village in the jungles of Brazil wearing the head of a large ceremonial chicken. A creative newsman covering the Sino-Japanese War, Chris Hunter (Gable) is known for his skill at manufacturing bogus news during unproductive lulls in the fighting. After he and his main rival in the newsreel business, Bill Dennis (Walter Pidgeon), altruistically decide to help beautiful aviatrix Alma Harding (Myrna Loy) find her lost brother, the film takes on a slightly surreal tone as her personal soap opera clashes with the cynical comedy of the newshounds' competition. By the time they all end up in South America, the film has shifted into slapstick mode, with the shamanistic Gable leading what are clearly backlot "natives" in some esoteric rituals. While the stolid Pidgeon is somewhat miscast, Gable is perfect here, with the comic timing and knack for throwing away lines that he rarely had a chance to use. Loy seems to be acting in a different movie altogether, which just adds to the overall sense of amiable delirium. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
