Word: lombard
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...assiduous and romantic collector of early Hollywood reminiscences. This interest sets him apart from his fellow film craftsmen, who rarely betray the slightest knowledge of their medium's past and who have in the last year or so trashed all kinds of potentially interesting material (Gable and Lombard, W.C. Fields, the early screen cowboys in Hearts of the West, not to mention the hapless Rin Tin Tin) while seeking a market in movie nostalgia that has so far been more apparent than real...
...Mexican resort. Nor does Tryon stint on nostalgia. Skillfully he conjures up the well-nigh irresistible grandeur that prewar Hollywood displayed to the world when "people were driven by their liveried chauffeurs in Duesenbergs . . . when polo matches were played at Will Rogers' ranch and Gable danced with Lombard at the Trocadero...
...approaches W.C. Fields and Me warily. If Hollywood could befoul a pleasantly romantic story about two attractive people like Gable and Lombard, what horrors might it inflict on us in attempting to make a movie about one of the most difficult, enigmatic and unlikely stars in the history of films...
There are minor historical howlers, and the lighting is so inept that in one key scene Lombard's shadow falls on Gable's face, blocking out his reactions...
What makes the film perversely interesting is the one quite novel way it has found to be bad. Gable was married when he met Lombard and apparently suffered the usual expensive difficulties that the newly rich have in shedding the mate who shared all the early struggles. Meantime, he and Lombard discreetly lived together until the lawyers could do their work...