1936 - WIFE VS. SECRETARY, a typical 1930's MGM drama

In many ways this is a typical MGM drama from "the good old days," sometimes called a "women's picture."  Wife Vs. Secretary is the kind of undemanding stuff MGM regularly pumped out for the movie going public.  For the most part a high class soap opera with top production values, big stars and a really trite plot.

 

Here we go.  Clark Gable is a high powered magazine editor who is married to his wife played by a glamorous Myrna Loy.  Clark is a wheeler dealer who has a devoted secretary played by MGM's resident 1930's sex bomb Jean Harlow.  Through lots of plot contrivances people suspect that Gable is having an affair with Harlow.  But Clark is devoted to his wife.  How do we know this?  Well Clark sticks jewelry in her food which she fishes out which apparently demonstrates his love for her.

 

Also showing up in this film is a young James Stewart in a supporting role playing Harlow's fiance. He gets real jealous over the amount of time Jean is spending with Clark.  Well one thing leads to another and lots of misunderstandings later Myrna thinks Clark is having an affair and is ready to leave him by taking a boat cruise to Cuba or somewhere in the Caribbean. 

 

It all works out in the end because it's an MGM picture made for the middle class.  Clearly the plot should have been that Clark has an affair with Jean and then has to work out his issues with Myrna to fix his marriage.  But this is an MGM picture and they are not about to endorse infidelity and bad mouth marriage. The film is kind of silly stuff.  Clarence Brown was one of MGM's best studio directors so the film is at the very least well made.

The talented writers involved in this film were John Lee Mahin, Norman Krasna and Alice Duer Miller. The running time is 88 minutes and fortunately not a minute longer.