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Nabaza.net-The MarketPlace - Saratoga
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $26.58
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: MGM (Warner)
Starring: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Frank Morgan, Walter Pidgeon
Directed By: Jack Conway
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786302605143
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 6302605148
Label: MGM (Warner)
Manufacturer: MGM (Warner)
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Warner)
Release Date: 1998-09-01
Running Time: 92
Studio: MGM (Warner)
Theatrical Release Date: 1937-07-23
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Racing in Saratoga
Comment: A "show" for film or Harlow buffs only. Cookie cutter plot "breezes" along but is never "fast" fun. At the finish line, you're more interested in picking out Harlow's doubles than the actual movie. Gable is good (Honey, I love ya) plus it's always fun to look at the "stable" of MGM bit part actors. Seeing Agnes Moorehead and Frank Morgan on the train is my pick of the day! Their trip to Oz was only a few years away.
Watching Harlow is a good "bet" too due to some eerie lines (Goodbye and I could just die) so this makes Saratoga a curio in itself. However, this movie isn't a "winner" but more an also-ran. Lionel Barrymore finishes strong with some good lines but it's Una Merkel who comes home the winner: We women can do things to a man we love that men wouldn't do to a rattlesnake.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of my Favorite Gable/Harlow films
Comment: Yes, it is sad to see the bloated, dying Jean Harlow in her final film.
It is sad that she died while making this film.
She had so much pressure from her family to always work that she worked no matter how bad she felt.
Harlow seems more subdued than in any of her other films.
While I like the flim Bombshell, Harlow's voice was too shrill and over the top. However, this is the type of dialouge used in the 1930s.
Next to Dinner at Eight, which is a classic film of the 1930s, Saratoga is my favorite Harlow film.
Mary Dees as a stand in and with another voice from radio reading Harlow's lines do not take from the film.
Dees' hat was all the fashion of the time. Large hats were all the rage in the 1930s.
It is sad that this film has never been converted to DVD and remastered.
Customer Rating:
Summary: For Harlow
Comment: Jean Harlow was the original blonde bombshell, and unlike Marilyn Monroe who came after her and tried to imitate her, Jean really could ACT, and she really had "IT", the star-quality thingy aura, while Marilyn just looked pretty on screen without being as witty or ingenious as Harlow. Saratoga was, as everyone knows, her last film, and you can totally see the sickness in her, she looks weary and sick underneath the acting in some scenes, but she really still gives a good performance. REALLY GOOD. Because she is Harlow. She and Gable perform their usual boy-gets-the-girl-in-the-end plot, and do it well with thier usual AH-MAZING chemistry. I could feel that Harlow was gone when they used the double, as it is obviuos to see, but it felt sad knowing she was dead and gone then. My personal favorite Gable/Harlow film is Red Dust, and it is my favorite pre-code too, because of the HOT scenes and it is well acted by a top-notch cast and good sets. Truly an all-star pre-code extravaganza. Well, anyways, Saratoga is an enjoyable romantic comedy movie, inspite of the fact that Harlow's fate was condemned and you can see her plainly sick on the screen. It was only fitting that her last film was a good one and with her screen partner Clark Gable. P.S.- Clark cried on Jean's coffin or whatever it was at her funeral, stricken with sadness, along with William Powell, the great love of Jean Harlow's life.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Jean Harlow. What a trouper.
Comment: Not a bad job of concealing the fact that Jean died halfway through the shooting of this movie. I am glad they didn't start over. Because Jean Harlow sick is still pretty good & this movie is a fitting legacy to her. Actually if you didn't know, the floppy hat, the over use of binoculars at the race track & brief back shots might not have tipped you off.
Oh, the movie. It is really a pretty good romantic comedy about horse racing & betting. The old time race scenes are great.Clark Gable plays the bookie with a heart of gold. Everybody loves him & he loves everybody. Jean is a snob who apparently has spent too much time in Europe. Gable turns her around in no time. Her father was a breeder & she is engaged to a a rich, complusive gambler. Get the picture? The movie alternates between Florida & New York race tracks. Complications ensue but we all know that Clark will get Jean by the closing credits. Lots of star power, good actors like Lionel Barrymore & Walter Pidgeon & character actors like Hattie McDaniel & Frank Morgan. I loved Una Merkel who played Fritzi.
Apparently the last shot of the movie with Clark & Jean waving from the last car on the train was shot eariler. See this one for more than the obvious reason.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Forget the sad history; it's a sparkling star vehicle
Comment: The gloom of Jean Harlow's tragic early death has cast a pall over SARATOGA for over 65 years. It's time for that veil to be lifted. Taken as it stands, SARATOGA is a gem of a romantic comedy with great performances from both Harlow and Clark Gable. Even the infamous doubling for Harlow in the last third doesn't mar the film, as it's handled in such a straightforward and perfunctory manner. What the film might have been had Harlow lived to complete it is debatable; even a notorious critic like Graham Greene thought the film played better downplaying the leading lady's role towards the end. What has always struck me is how some Harlow fans bemoan the doubling, and even the fact the film was completed. Would they have preferred MGM to scrap the over forty minutes of footage that Harlow did leave prior to her death? If the studio had done that, I tend to think that they would be the one's crying over the loss now. I, for one, would much prefer having the prime Harlow footage that appears here, more then any of her other, rather awful work in films like HELL'S ANGELS, PLATINUM BLONDE, and PUBLIC ENEMY. As for the 3 and ½ minutes that Mary Dees spends in the film with her back to the camera, or wearing that ridiculous floppy hat (in the one scene I think could have been omitted), how many remember Harlow's early appearance in the Clara Bow film THE SATURDAY NIGHT KID, where she spent nearly twice that amount of time with her own back to the camera. Even in Harlow's previous film, PERSONAL PROPERTY, the back of her head ended up facing the camera more than a few times. The bottom line is that people only complain about the doubling in SARATOGA because their attention is drawn to it, unfortunately due to the sad circumstances regarding the film's production. However, once the film is separated from it's tragic history, it becomes the grand entertainment it was intended to be. The script by Anita Loos and Robert Hopkins is exemplary, and the performances all around hit just the right, lighthearted, note (again, all the more impressive given the history). For me, SARATOGA has become a test case. I've shown it to over two dozen people over the years, and all of them, having no idea of it's history, thought it was marvelous. Nor did they pick up on the Mary Dees doubling, or even have any idea there was anything wrong with Jean Harlow. All were shocked when I revealed she had died before completing the film. After all these years, it's time for the mourning to end. In 1937 Time magazine boldly declared that SARATOGA was "Jean Harlow's best film, as well as her last." I won't go that far. But among the Gable/Harlow films, I will say it ranks second only to RED DUST. Hopefully, when the film makes it's way to DVD it will get the deluxe treatment it deserves - both for its unique history, and as a memorial to its wonderful leading lady.
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