Adventure (1945)

the leading man is my tpye

The greatest movie ever made..!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

World War II serviceman and sailor Clark Gable (as Harry Patterson) is torpedoed by the Japanese and appears destined to become seafood. Promising to give up hard liquor and loose women, boozy first mate Thomas Mitchell (as Mudgin) asks God to save Mr. Gable and his raft-floating crew. Gable makes no promises, but God answers Mr. Mitchell's prayer and the men are saved. Back on land, Mitchell gets drunk and fears for his soul. Gable wants to find a female companion, but stops to help Mitchell by bringing him to the library, where they hope to find wisdom...In the library, Gable meets glamorous bookworm Greer Garson (as Emily Sears) and her brassy pal Joan Blondell (as Helen Melohn). Ms. Garson and Gable rub each other the wrong way, but pal around while Gable dates Ms. Blondell. "Adventure" was Gable's return to films after World War II service. The MGM super-stars are fine until they "fall in love" and steal chickens. Perhaps because it is so silly and doesn't sustain the co-star chemistry, this was recalled as a failure - but, figures in "Motion Picture Herald" and "Film Daily" confirm "Adventure" was a hit.***** Adventure (12/28/45) Victor Fleming ~ Clark Gable, Greer Garson, Joan Blondell, Thomas Mitchell

In his first film after World War II service in the Army Air Corps, Clark Gable settled down to a familiar character and one of his most familiar directors. Adventure was the last of five films that Gable did with Victor Fleming which also includes Gone With The Wind. This one never quite measured up to Gone With The Wind though.Gable was literally met at the airport by Louis B. Mayer and rushed into this film. It was thought at the time that a film with current box office sensation Greer Garson was a can't miss item at the box office. Garson was coming off an Oscar she received in 1942 for Mrs. Miniver the year Gable went away to war. The results were underwhelming, but seen over 60 years after it was first out show Adventure to be not a bad story at all. Gable fits comfortably into the part of the tough boatswain who loves the rollicking life at sea he leads. No woman is going to be tying him down, not one like prim and proper librarian Greer Garson. He likes them like her roommate Joan Blondell, sassy and out for a good time.But Greer and her notions of settling down with home and family kind of get under his skin. It's what's led many a man to the altar.Gable and Garson never worked together again, probably by mutual consent. Neither were each other's types on the screen and in life, but no one has anything to be ashamed of in Adventure.Best performance in the cast is by Thomas Mitchell as Gable's friend and confidante. Mitchell plays the usual tragicomic alcoholic that he took a patent out on for the screen. Another in the cast and former vocalist with the Xavier Cugat Orchestra is Lina Romay who is the woman we first see Gable with as the film opens. She would shortly be joining the Bing Crosby show as the featured female singer. That 'dame' who gets $20.00 for some conversation is none other than Barbara Billingsley aka June Cleaver. Who'd have thunk that one?Though this one didn't set the world on fire, Gable's next two films, Homecoming and The Hucksters rank in my humble opinion as two of his very best. The King was ascending his throne again.

"Adventure" is an oddly generic title for such a singularly unique motion picture. Its superficial values are appealing enough--the Gable bluster is rarely put to such good use, and Garson is possibly the only actress with enough mettle to match him--but these attributes are hardly unusual and neither, indeed, is the storyline. What makes the effort favorably surprising is the story's aspiration to allegory through the use of poetics, which may occasionally seem overt but which never fail to ring true. It's an ambitious undertaking, and it works.In its time, the movie was dismissed for being both formulaic and even crude, which in itself betrays either an ignorance of its higher aspirations or, more likely, a reluctance to take them seriously. America in 1945 prided itself on street smarts and industrial might; on its not being taken for a sucker. It had saved Europe from the axis forces and was about to embark on a socioeconomic boom such as the world had never seen: It wasn't interested in philosophical musings about the nature of the soul. The idea that these musings could be given dimension in a simple and often predictable story about a rakish sailor and a repressed librarian drove reviewers to pronounce the script "foolish" and the poetic commentary "gibberish." But it is these very elements, this oddly ardent coloring, that have somehow deepened and mellowed with time, and which now provide the film with the kind of rich, subtle flavor found in only the most treasured vintages. More unique still is that the movie is less interested in the sentimentality of its story than in the metaphysical questions it poses. Its chief accomplishment is in avoiding any academic exploration of such questions (a choice which parallels the arc of the story itself), and it does so by illustrating with large, colorful brushes. Only the intelligence of the director and the skill of his actors keep the proceedings from veering off into caricature, a tipping point that when straddled with such finesse is delightful viewing indeed.

I was 8 years old when I saw this movie and it impressed me so much. I will never forget 3 things in the movie "Adventure". How to hypnotize a chicken; how the water drains out of the tub in a different direction depending on which side of the equator you live; how Clark Gable was yelling at his newborn baby to breathe.It was such a good romance, even to a young girl and I remember how the friend, Mudgin, was afraid of losing his soul. I am 64 years old now and it is still as fresh in my mind as it was in 1946 in Hartshorne, Oklahoma.