Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

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

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

boscopa-1 Taken as a diverting bit of fluff, "Saratoga" is a pleasant film not worthy of the talents of its cast but easy on the eyes. The plot is in the screwball vein but lacking the manic intensity of the genre; it revolves around a bookie trying to save a horse farm by luring a rich "chump" to lose racing bets & finance the endeavor. Clark Gable, looking alarmingly thin, is the bookie and he delivers his standard performance. Scenery-chewing Lionel Barrymore and blustering Frank Morgan are on hand playing characters they perfected during their careers. Also on board are Una Merkel, Walter Pidgeon, and in a bit role Dennis O'Keefe. Unfortunately all of this is secondary to the only reason this film merits attention: it is the final film of legendary Jean Harlow. The tragedy of Miss Harlow has been well documented. She was literally dying while shooting this movie and it is a difficult film to sit through knowing this. In the final 20-25 minutes her character is clearly played by a double hidden behind binoculars, a large hat, or shot from behind. Nobody wanted to finish the movie after Miss Harlow passed away but there was such an outcry from her fans that the picture was completed by a heavy- hearted studio. Ironically it was her biggest hit film largely because everyone wanted to get a final glimpse of her. Her performance is not one of her best; she is lacking her usual energy & effervescence. But it is an incredibly poignant performance knowing the terrible physical pain she must have been suffering during the shoot. By all accounts Jean Harlow was an amazing individual; beloved by all and someone who valued the happiness of others over her own. She was more concerned about letting the cast & crew of "Saratoga" down than getting help for her illness. A class act to the end.

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** More of a curiosity piece then anything else "Saratoga" turned out to be Jean Harlow's last movie dying on June 7, 1937 of kidney failure a the young age of 26 some six weeks before the film was released! With the movie 90% finished and the MGM studios was forced to use a stand in for Miss Harlow to finally finish the movie! That instead of re-shooting the entire film with another actress replacing her. As things turned out "Saratoga" turned out to be the biggest grossing MGM film of 1937. There was also in the film Lionel Barrymore as Grandpa Clayton who soon ended up in a wheelchair because of his severe arthritic condition.The film involves a round robin romance between socialite Carol Clayton, Jean Harlow, bookie Duke Bradley, Clark Gable, and Carol's fiancée Wall Sreet bigwig Hartley Madison, Walter Pidgeon. It's Duke who at first has all the cards by having the deed to Carol's father's Frank Clayton, Jonathan Hale, horse breeding farm. It was Frank who owed Duke $60,000.00 in bets that he lost to him who signed the farm over to Duke as collateral until he could come up with the 60 G's. As it turned out Frank died of a heart attack at the Saratoga Racetrack before he could pay Duke back and thus ended up losing the farm or racing stable,Brookvale Stables,to him for good.It's when Duke met Carol who was trying to buy her late father's stables back for him that he suddenly got the hots for her. It's was then that Duke, seeing a golden opportunity, tried to destroy Carol's relationship with Hartley by trying to bust him in a betting contest at not only at the Saratoga Race Track but a number of tracks, Belmont Pimlico Hialeah, up and down the East Coast. As we soon found out It was Hartley who in fact won some $60,000.00 off Duke betting with him over the years. And now Duke sees an opportunity to not only get his money back but end up stealing Hartley's girl Carol as well.As the movie builds up to the big race "The Hopeful Stakes" at Saratoga you soon completely forget about it in that by then Jean Harlow or Carol Clayton was history with only a stand in replacement filling in for her. As confusing as the film or horse opera was this made it even more confusing to follow. But it was the final racing sequences in it that kept you from falling asleep or just turning it off altogether.You can see right away the chemistry between Clark Gable and Jean Harlow which was so natural that it made you feel as if the two weren't acting at all. There was even a number of scenes in the film where Jean as Carol was suffering from a serious cold or flu that almost mimicked her real illness that in fact ended up taking her life.

kirksworks This was the sixth film Jean Harlow made with Clark Gable. She died before completing her scenes. It's a curiosity more than anything, but not a bad film at all. In fact, there are many of entertaining scenes between her and Gable. One of them may be the most iconic scene they ever had together. It has to do with a cigar. I won't say more. The film was directed by Jack Conway, a very under appreciated director. Among his films are "Tarzan and His Mate," " A Tale of Two Cities," "Red-Headed Woman" (one of Harlow's best), "Libeled Lady" (another good Harlow performance) and "Crossroads" (with Hedy Lamarr) - all quite good films. He sure knew how to direct Harlow.The basic plot is about a family that raises race horses. Of course gambling plays a big part as well. Gable is a bookie, not a noble profession. His character is a bit dodgy. Walter Pidgeon, sans mustache, plays Gable's competition for Harlow. He doesn't have a lot of scenes, but he's suitably debonair where he appears. Gable is joined by Hattie McDaniel, both of them pre "Gone With the Wind." She even sings and is quite funny to watch. There is a long train scene (I love scenes on trains), and this is a highlight of the film. There is a wonderful sequence between Frank Morgan (the wizard of Oz), and Margaret Hamilton (wicked witch of the west), 2 years before "Oz" was made. A great cast. The last 20 min. of the film was where Harlow's stand-in was used, since Jean had died. Three women apparently were used to create the illusion. But it was rather obvious. Suddenly, Harlow's character pretty much disappears and we see her from the side or back or with a hat covering her face. Since films are shot out of order I thought there'd be more of Harlow intermixed, but in the last 20 min. there are really only two scenes with the real Harlow, which are connected with shots of the stand in. Harlow had such a distinctive walk, the stand in couldn't possibly have matched. Luckily, for the most part, the studio didn't try. Mainly what the studio did was rewrite so scenes that were originally to have Harlow were done without her, with other characters saying where she was or talking about her. Up to this point I'd say the movie was quite good, and the lead up to a final horse race was well set up. The outcome of the race would determine the love between Harlow and Gable, and so not to be able to see her expression as the race was underway, was a major drawback. We see the stand in with binoculars over her face throughout the sequence. It lessened what impact the film's climax could have had. Harlow was very sick when she made this film, but aside from a couple of scenes where she looked heavier than usual, she was still beautiful. What is really strange is that in the film Harlow plays a character who is often sick. It's rather creepy watching those scenes, knowing that she really was sick, dying, in fact. It almost seems like the studio knew something we didn't know, but more than likely, if it wasn't coincidence, the studio knew Harlow wasn't feeling well, so put her in scenes where she could perform lying down. Who knows? What is also unsettling to watch is understanding that Gable and the rest of the cast had to perform the rest of the film without their beloved star. And she was beloved. Everyone (except Joan Crawford), loved Harlow. It's pretty obvious in the film when the real Harlow had died, and yet we watch the cast perform like real troopers without her. Harlow was 26 when she died, but she left a substantial number of good films. Quite a legacy, really. She had appeared in bit parts in a number of silent films, two with Laurel and Hardy, before being discovered by Howard Hughes, who cast her in "Hell's Angels." That film is remembered more for its aerial footage than for Harlow, but it has Harlow's only color sequence, in 2-strip Technicolor. The young Clark Gable was really a lot of fun to watch. In "Night Nurse," a Pre Code film years before "Saratoga," Gable plays a truly hateful, bad guy. Very unusual to see him in a role like that. He was chilling. Too bad he didn't do more films that that. He was really good at it. Gable acted alongside Jean Harlow in the 30s, was paired with Hedy Lamarr in the 40s, and made it all the way to the sixties, finally being paired with Marilyn Monroe in his last film. I wonder if Marilyn, a big fan of Harlow, felt as though she'd come full circle, to be playing opposite Harlow's co-star of the 30s? Did she pump Gable with questions about Harlow? I don't know if anyone but Gable and Monroe know the answer to that. "Saratoga" is definitely worth a look, but it's not a great film. Even if Harlow had lived to finish it, I don't think it would be considered one of her best. The horse race sequence and the ending would have been much better, but wouldn't have sent it over the top into greatness. What is interesting about this film in relation to the rest of her work is that it's the only film she made that hints at what she would have been like in the 1940s. One of the great losses of Hollywood is that Harlow never made it to the 3-strip Technicolor era. She will forever remain the platinum girl of the platinum screen.

carvalheiro "Saratoga" (1937) directed by Jack Conway, where Jean Harlow in a scene is putting face powder during a break at the horses race on Churchill Downs and she is enough interesting as character seen from her back as style and ritual of acting, as repetitive gesture of the women in instinctive standing before society with nothing to do after the end of a given race. A trip by train and sleeping at night after talking, it is another scene of anthology from the thirties or also another, where all people around approaching, inside a saloon near the room of her, listening by the radio transmission which it seems a match of baseball, but it is a race horsing for gamblers broadcast from the stadium, interrupting their domestic activities for hearing the results of the winning horse, each time screaming as little boys. Both scenes for instance were moments of social conviviality, among bosses and employees in this comedy of happiness, waiting for the next as though nothing happened out of racing horses, except the mental health of this young woman, daughter of a land owner with horses for races. The sense of a reasonable attitude is at stake, when the daughter of the owner of racing horses refuses to take medication, before the diagnostic made by the physician in her room after a break in her health. Refusing even the recommendation of staying alone on the bed, without too much light in the room by day, because her lack of sleeping when anguish and the turmoil of her own life are surrounded by friends of these quality and glamor, by whom they care after all for her better health. It is quite instructive knowing, how it is possible after such a last derby, what of either horses won really at the place of the other ; because, at first sight, it's impossible by the line of departure directly from the stadium itself during the race. The scene where is projecting a documentary, in a special session and where the viewers were a group of friends from the horses racing, with the main characters of this fiction movie there : it is almost unbelievable of happiness for the time, with smiles in every figure and particularly of the daughter of the horses farmer, for racing in such derbies and it works well as satisfactory behavior among them, when they discovered the small difference between the winner and the second place, by the slow motion at least on the last seconds, frame by frame on the screen projection with Moon Ray in second place, viewed by them in a special room aside the stadium, like a kind of referees from this distinguished people belonging to high society.