NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

GazerRise Fantastic!

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

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

holly Since Clark Gable became famous for punching women in films (notably Barbara Stanwyck in Night Nurse), it is worthy to note that Marion Davies gives HIM the black eye! Cain and Mabel has a cute premise: a boxer and an actress get together for the sake of publicity but secretly despise each other! Unfortunately there isn't much spark here. Davies is serviceable in the reluctant golddigger role with platinum hair and impossibly blue eyes that seem to have no iris at all, but she doesn't seem particularly committed. Gable also phones it in as a one-note brute -- almost a parody of his many other roles. The subplot that they'd both rather stay home and eat pork chops than act out their romance for the audiences, seems a little too real. This is one of those films that pairs up two huge stars in a mediocre script, hoping sparks will fly with arguments and overturned ice buckets, but mostly it fizzles.The one stunning exception comes in the third reel when Davies performs in the finale of her Broadway show. It is a jaw-dropping tableau of romantic imagery in huge puffy sleeves and fluffy white feathers. From Louis XVI wigs, to Venice canals, to flying angels, to a choir arranged to look like a pipe organ. Curving staircases, ornate bridges, miles of drapery, and a princess double-cone hat with cascading tulle..., and it just keeps coming. Thematically it steals -- I mean, pays homage to half-a-dozen depression era musicals like "Shall We Dance", and even borrows the violin song from "Gold Diggers of 1933". At the center of it all Davies struggles to keep a relaxed smile, like a bride statuette on a wedding cake so ornately decorated with white icing there is no room left for the groom!Without this scene I would have only given the movie a 4, but this sequence is EVERYTHING YOU WATCH SILVER-AGE MUSICALS FOR! I have to bump it up to an 8 as a "must see" in musical history.

drednm Marion Davies and Clark Gable star together in a second film (they had co-starred in POLLY OF THE CIRCUS) as a Broadway star and a prize fighter who get tricked into a phony publicity romance to increase their box office draw. Lots of snappy lines here as the two stars go through their paces, accompanied by a solid supporting cast. Davies gets doused with a bucket of water. She gets even, dousing Gable with water in a hallway. They trade insults Davies gets to star is two lavish production numbers. The "Coney Island" romp is fun with Davies singing and dancing with Sammy White. The "Thousand Love Songs" number is built on a huge stage (biggest ever, the roof was raised 35 ft to accommodate the massive sets) and includes a human pipe organ, a Venetian canal, and even a white wedding, with Davies as the centerpiece in all of them. Davies cracked a rib during a dance number. Too bad the dance double is badly done. Still a lot of fun all round.Ruth Donnelly, William Collier, Allen Jenkins, Pert Kelton, Robert Paige (billed as David Carlyle), Hobart Cavanaugh, Marie Prevost, E.E. Clive, Walter Catlett, and Roscoe Karns co-star. Sammy White is terrific in the "Coney Island" number, following up a great turn in SHOW BOAT with Irene Dunne. Jane Wyman is one of the chorus girls.Davies would make only one more film after CAIN AND MABEL.

bkoganbing Louis B. Mayer got some good currency lending his number one star Clark Gable out to Columbia for It Happened One Night, to 20th Century Fox for Call of the Wild and now to Warner Brothers for Cain and Mabel. Sad to say though this one doesn't measure up to the other two.It's a musical and musicals back in the day had some truly ridiculous plots, but this one kind of defied belief. Davies is a waitress who becomes a Broadway musical star, but after a while she yearns for the simple life. Gable as he describes himself is just a gas jockey with a good punch who becomes heavyweight champion. They get thrown together for publicity's sake due to press agent Roscoe Karns. But of course they get serious for real as it always goes in these films.For myself I could not swallow that these two people just want to get back to their former nonentity existences. I think that would have been a bit much for Thirties theater audiences as well.Harry Warren and Al Dubin wrote two songs for the film, I'll Sing You a Thousand Love Songs and Coney Island, both of which get a semi Busby Berkeley treatment by dance director Bobby Connolly. My guess is that Berkeley probably passed on Cain and Mabel himself.Look for good performances from Walter Catlett as the Broadway producer and the aforementioned Roscoe Karns. Robert Paige is in this also under the name David Carlyle and he takes care of the vocal department as Davies leading man and a pretty sappy one at that. Then again he's supposed to not get her.Davies was very good as a light comedienne, but this material is too much for her.

MartinHafer Despite whether or not people came to see this movie (and they did), this movie was a real step back for Clark Gable in his attempt to gain acceptance as a starring actor. For several years, his movies had improved both in budgets and writing and by now he was a huge star at MGM. So, why, I ask was he starring in such as lousy film that is ONLY redeemed by his screen presence?! The plot is 100% dumb and seems much more like one of his films from 1931 or 1932. Marion Davies, also, has almost no charisma or spark as his love interest. I've enjoyed her i other films, but her character is just awful in this movie. If I were in Gable's shoes, I wouldn't have fallen for her. Punched her,...maybe. The film is a battle (and this is definitely the focus) between the leads and it's very hard to see them eventually falling for each other. Unbelievable and sloppy.Oddly, while most critics disliked this movie strongly, almost 60% of the scores on IMDb as of this date have given this movie a score of 10!!! While I understand that some might like this movie (after all, everybody is entitled to their opinion), I strongly suspect some person or persons have deliberately flooded IMDb with scores of 10, as by any objective standard, it's not a great film. Even his GREAT films that are in the IMDb TOP 250 (such as GONE WITH THE WIND or IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT) have a MUCH lower percentage of scores of 10 (with less than 40% of the scores being 10 for each). So, don't believe the high score--something fishy is happening here!