Clarence Brown’s old fashioned race melodrama, To Please a Lady, stars Gable and Stanwyck, now mature actors, cast in stereotypical roles.
Grade: C+ (** out of *****)
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Theatrical poster
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Gable plays Mike Brannon, a hard-driving car racer known for his ruthless racing. Stanwyck is columnist Regina Ford, who decides to interview him. She knows that a driver had been killed and that he had been blamed for the fatal crash, but she wants to be fair to Mike. She watches the races and is horrified when another driver crashes into the wall to his death. She writes a furious column, which results in barring Mike from the tracks.
He goes into a sideshow, performing death-defying stunts in order to earn enough to buy a full-sized racer and enter the regular races.
Meeting again, they fall in love, but they are held apart by her fear that he will kill another driver and his resentment of her lack of understanding.
At the Memorial Day Race at the Indianapolis Speedway, when an accident allows room for only one more racer to pass, Mike waves for his rival to go through while he runs out on the rough, hoping he will hold the wheel and get back on the track. Instead, he cracks up, and ends at the hospital, with Regina is by his side.
Gable, pushing 50, is cast in the rugged, hard-boiled type of role that had originally made him popular.
The story is familiar, even tiresome, but producer-director Clarence Brown has included some thrilling race scenes, spectacular driving stunts, and rousing humor.
In their first love scene, Gable slaps Stanwyck’s face (as he had been doing for decades) –and she comes back for more. Though their romance is torrid and tempestuous, it still lacks credibility. due to lack of chemistry between them.
The racing scenes were shot at Carroll Speedway in Los Angeles. Dirt track sequences were filmed at Arlington Downs in Texas.
Stanwyck was at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the film’s final scenes, and so she was in Victory Lane after the 1950 race to offer the real 500 winner, Johnnie Parsons, the traditional congratulatory kiss.
The film earned $2,061,000 in America and $861,000 elsewhere, resulting in small profit of $47,000.
Reel/Real Impact
In 1951, future 500 winner and four-time American National Champion, Mario Andretti saw the film as a young boy in his native Italy – where it was titled Indianapolis – an event which introduced him to the race for the first time.
Cast
Clark Gable as Mike Brannan
Barbara Stanwyck as Regina Forbes
Adolphe Menjou as Gregg, Regina’s editor
Will Geer as Jack Mackay, car builder and Brannon’s crew chief
Roland Winters as Dwight Barrington, an unscrupulous businessman and another of Regina’s targets
William C. McGaw as Joie Chitwood
Lela Bliss as Regina’s secretary
Emory Parnell as Mr. Wendall
Frank Jenks as Press agent
Helen Spring as Janie
Bill Hickman as Mike’s pit crew
Lew Smith as Mike’s pit crew
“Bullet” Joe Garson as Joe Youghal
Credits:
MGM
Produced and directed by Clarence Brown.
Original screenplay by Barre Lyndon and Marge Decker.
Photography by Harold Rosson.
Art Directors: Cedric Gibbons and James Basevi.
Musical score by Bronislau Kaper.
Special effects by A. Arnold Gillespie and Warren Newcombe.
Editor: Robert J. Kern.
Release date: October 13, 1950.
Running time: 91 minutes.
Budget $1,853,000
Box office $2,922,000
