To Please a Lady

1950
U
1h 31m

IMDb RATING

6.2/10

1.2K

YOUR RATING

Clark Gable and Barbara Stanwyck in To Please a Lady (1950)

A former war hero and midget car racer meets his match in a feisty reporter who blames his reckless tactics for an accidental racing death.

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A former war hero and midget car racer meets his match in a feisty reporter who blames his reckless tactics for an accidental racing death.A former war hero and midget car racer meets his match in a feisty reporter who blames his reckless tactics for an accidental racing death.A former war hero and midget car racer meets his match in a feisty reporter who blames his reckless tactics for an accidental racing death.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.2/10

1.2K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

User reviews24

Featured review

4/10

Couldn't have they given Gable & Stanwyck something better?

Gable and Stanwyck did one other film together at the beginning of talking pictures. It was called Night Nurse and Barbara was the lead and Gable an up and coming supporting player.

A generation later and they're both screen legends. I would have hoped that MGM would have given them something better. It's not that it's a bad film, the racing sequences are quite good and exciting. But To Please A Lady was definitely a B picture.

I have a theory that Gable wanted to do this for pleasure. After World War II, Gable and Stanwyck's husband Robert Taylor both took up racing; motorbikes, automobiles, you name it. MGM put a stop to it, not wanting to have two of its most expensive properties out risking their necks for fun. That's why we have stunt men. It took the decline of the studio system before a newer generation of stars like James Garner, Paul Newman and most of all Steve McQueen could pursue racing without studio interference.

Gable is the race car driver and Barbara Stanwyck is the Dorothy Thompson type columnist who at first dislikes him and then falls for him big time. Lots of similarities in their relationship to Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn in Woman of the Year. No comedic moments in this one though.

Both Gable and Stanwyck deserved something more memorable than To Please A Lady.

bkoganbing
Nov 17, 2004
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Trivia
Being in Indianapolis was difficult for Clark Gable personally. The city had been the last stop on a war bond tour in 1942 for his second wife, actress Carole Lombard, before she was to fly back home to Los Angeles. Tragically, Lombard's plane never made it back. It crashed in Nevada killing everyone on board. Theirs had been a happy marriage, and it was a loss from which Gable never recovered. At the time of To Please a Lady (1950) Gable had finally remarried, this time to Douglas Fairbanks' widow, Sylvia Ashley. During filming he seemed happier and healthier than he had in years according to friends. Even so, Gable remembered his beloved late wife while in Indianapolis. He quietly made a point to visit the downtown locations where Lombard had made her final public appearances before meeting her untimely death.

Goofs
Because footage shot during the actual 1950 Indy 500 was used, Mauri Rose can be seen exiting the pits driving past the pit for the real car #17, Joie Chitwood (Mauri Rose and Joie Chitwood's pits were next to each other during the 1950 500 race).

Quotes
Mike Brannan: You figure on doing another column on me?
Regina Forbes: You're only worth a couple of lines now.
Mike Brannan: Well, don't write 'em! I've been risking my neck with this outfit.
Regina Forbes: I hope they pay you well.
Mike Brannan: A hundred bucks a show, and I've been saving every dime. I'm gonna drive with the big cars now, and what you wrote about me doesn't go with them. So I'm warning you. Lay off me in the future.
Regina Forbes: [Amused] You're warning me?
Mike Brannan: You better listen to what I'm saying, or I'll knock that smile off your face!
Regina Forbes: [She laughs at him] Knock it off.
[He slaps her]
Regina Forbes: That's just about what I expect from you.
Mike Brannan: The guys you run around with wouldn't do that, would they? Well, it's time somebody roughed you up a little! I can handle you, baby. You're just another dame to me!
[He grabs her suddenly, kisses her, and leaves for his car. She looks after him with a subtle smile indicating she enjoyed it]