Laughing Sinners (1931)

Very Cool!!!

Truly Dreadful Film

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Such a low rating... only a 4.9 as of today. Opens with Ivy (Joanie Crawford) running to catch the train when it comes in. She spends five minutes smooching her guy, and then shows up late for her show at the theater. Crawford had started as a "hoofer", and we get to see plenty of it in the silly show they put on. Some big names in here, in the early days... Neil Hamilton (Commissioner Gordon!) is "Howard" and a 30 year old Clark Gable (Rhett Butler, Gone with the Wind) had started in the silent films, and easily moved into talkies. You can see all the heavy make-up on Crawford, left over from the "silents"... Supporting Guy Kibbee and Rosceo Karns were in everything in the early days. Joan C. sings a couple times in this one, but clearly singing warn't her thang! She receives a telegram one night, and faints. She runs off, and bumps SMACK into Carl (Clark Gable) and they tell each other their stories. He is with the salvation army, and she is intrigued. naturally. who wouldn't be?? and about halfway through, we get the vaudeville act from Kibbee and his cronies... some old time humor. We cover a lot of ground in 72 minutes. Directed by Harry Beaumont, who had done a bunch of precode Crawford films. It's okay, but i can see why its rated pretty low. She spends the whole film running back and forth from Howard and Carl. takes a long time to get anywhere. Sound and picture quality are pretty good, considering its age.

Even before he was typecast as a Hollywood he man Clark Gable found work playing toughs and gangsters in secondary roles with the exception of this role against type before or after stardom as a sincere Salvation Army worker trying to save good time cabaret girl Bunny Stevens from the wages of sin. Toned down from the macho self assuredness that would carry his career he gives a more than adequate performance supporting leads Joan Crawford and Neil Hamilton (yes, Inspector Gordon).Bunny (Crawford) is a modern flapper out for a good time when she get's the gate from her married traveling salesman boyfriend Howdy Palmer (Hamilton). Thunderstruck she attempts to toss herself in the river but is prevented by Salvation Army officer Carl Loomis (Gable) who after a long walk and talk and a night to think it over gets her to sign up. Rewarding as it is she runs into Howdy a year later who wears her resistance down.The blonde Crawford does her usual solid desperate depression era every-woman sch tick with her tremulous voiced struggle with the world while letting her piercing eyes and delicate toned figure fill in the rest. Neil as the heel (couldn't resist) wears the moustache in this film as he fast talks Bunny into bed. Loathsome and unctuous as he is he does not kid himself he is anything else and in doing so attains a scintilla of dignity in a role that is all sleazy creep.Scene stealers Guy Kibee ( a mortician salesman who deals in "underground novelties") and Roscoe Karns along with Hamilton do yeoman work in perpetuating the traveling salesmen stereotype while Gert Short buying an O'Henry candy bar has a brief but hilarious center stage moment. It's Crawford's vehicle from start to finish but with 20/20 hindsight Gable's toned down soul saver shows him gaining fast.

MGM at its most intolerable, with Louis B. Mayer imposing his hypocritical morality on a dime-novel romance. Bad girl Joan Crawford is cavorting with the supremely unattractive traveling salesman Neil Hamilton, but is redeemed by--how's this for casting against type--Salvation Army major Clark Gable. Together the photogenic twosome wander off to host Salvation Army luncheons, dance around the maypole, and sing "London Bridge" to underprivileged tots. Designed to show off Crawford's versatility--she sings, dances, and almost acts--it instead reveals how deficient she is at this point in her career in most of these endeavors, and Gable looks bored. Anyway, it's short, and Hamilton at least gets to rub elbows with a fine crew of fellow salesmen, including Roscoe Karns, Guy Kibbee, and Cliff Edwards.

Laughing Sinners marks the first time Clark Gable appeared in a movie starring Joan Crawford. Crawford is the only name above the title and Gable is listed third in the cast list after Neil Hamilton (who would be better known as Commissioner Gordon in the "Batman" TV series). Crawford is a singer/dancer who falls for the traveling salesman Hamilton. He abandons her while she sings a love song for him. Gable plays a Salvation Army man who saves Joan from jumping off a bridge and convinces her to join. While she performs on a street corner, Hamilton sees Crawford and convinces her to stay in his hotel room. I'll stop right there and mention who else is in this movie: Guy Kibbee, Roscoe Karns, Cliff Edwards before he became the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio, and, in a nice picnic scene with Gable and Crawford, Our Ganger Mary Ann Jackson, hair bob and all. There are some entertaining musical numbers danced by Crawford including an amusing sequence of Joan dressing as a farmer with funny nose and beard. Other than that and the picnic scenes, this is a pretty talky picture that reveals its stage origins too clearly toward the end so you may feel bored after a while. Still, an interesting curio for fans of all the above players.