ADVENTURE  [1945]

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Produced by Sam Zimbalist.
Directed by Victor Fleming.
Screenplay by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan and Vincent Lawrence, 
based on the novel by Clyde Brion Davis.
Ada p ted for the screen by Anthony Veilier and William H. Wright.
Photography by Joseph Ruttenberg.
Art Directors: Cedric Gibbons and
Uric McCleary. Musical score by- Herbert Stothart. 
Special effects by Warren Newcombe.
Editor: Frank Sullivan.
Release date: December 28, 1945.
Running time: 125 minutes.

CAST: Clark Gable, Greer Garson, Joan Blondell, Thomas Mitchell, Tom Tully, John Qualen, Richard Haydn, Lina Romay, Philip Merivale, Harry
Davenport, Tito Renaldo.

SYNOPSIS:

Adrift on a life raft after his ship is torpedoed by the Japs, Mudgin (Thomas Mitchell), a lovable and eccentric old sailor, promises God he will reform if He will save him and his shipmates. Shortly afterward Mudgin and his companions, including Harry Patterson (Clark Gable), a hard-boiled bos'n whose one tenderness is his affection for the old Irish sailor, are rescued and taken to San Francisco.

Within a few short hours Mudgin has broken all his promises to God. To his horror his soul drifts off into the fog. Reluctantly, Harry agrees to help his heartbroken friend search for his soul and in the process makes the acquaintance of Emily (Greer Carson), a librarian. In spite of Harry's arrogance, Emily is attracted by his charm and to the amazement of her roommate, Helen (Joan Blondell), and the bewildered Mudgin, runs off to Reno with him where they are married.

It isn't long before Emily realizes that for Harry it is all simply a lark. To him, she is just another dame and he is now ready to return to sea, confident that she will be waiting when he returns. Bitterly disillusioned, Emily sues for divorce.

At sea, Harry and Mudgin quarrel bitterly because Mudgin believes his friend is giving up the finest thing that ever happened to him, Emily's love. Heartbrdken when he learns Harry intends to quit the ship, Mudgin deliberately suffers a serious injury, which brings Harry back. Then Mudgin dies and Harry returns to Emily to discover she is having his baby. The child is apparently born dead but Harry prays for the first time in his life and his son breathes. In Emily and his child he has finally found the reason for living.

REVIEWS:

Time: Adventure was clearly carpentered to fit the old Gable formula; and ex-aerial-gunner photographer Gable himself fits the formula as smoothly and as agreeably as ever. If he is a little chubbier around the jowls, h& is still able to sling his weight around-and in his bright eye is the same old wicked fire.

Motion Picture Herald: The role of the virile, lusty, swashbuckling adventurer is one that Gable plays to the hilt and that his fans will thoroughly enjoy. While others in the cast are a number of standout performances . . - Greer Carson is not suited to her assignment but delivers with the high professional standard that is her trademark. Joan Blondell as the slightly giddy blonde who goes for sailors, particularly Gable, is a sheer delight.
Photoplay: What use for us to cite the flaws and bemoan the story, for it's Gable's first postwar picture and movie fans, if for no other reason than that, will send its rating sky high. What we can't understand, however, is the vociferous and he-mannish Mr. Gable consenting to mouth the innocuous and at times, whimsical dialogue that means just nothing. Words, words, words. Nevertheless, it rates a best because it brings back Gable to the screen, it will please Miss Garson's fans to have her young and gay for a change; and because both Joan Blondell as Garson's friend and Tom Mitchell, soul or no soul, give fine performances.

The New York Times: By all the laws of Hollywood, some sort of nuclear fission should have occurred when Metro brought Greer Carson and Clark Gable together in a film. For those two names joined on a marquee have the potential, in a box office way, of the atom splitting equation used by the scientists at Oak Ridge. But something went wrong in Metro's handling of these two cosmic elements and their Adventure, which should have been a bombshell, is about as explosive as a slightly ancient egg - maybe he (Cable) tries a bit too hard, what with this being his first film after three years of Army routine- only this time he talks too loudly, shouts "Ha!" contemptuously too many times, and persists in keeping his hat on to an irritating extreme.

My Review: Adventure was the first movie Gable shot when he returned from the Air Force.  Louie B. Mayer arranged Gable to team up with the current first lady of MGM Greer Garson.  He wanted Gable's comeback film to be very emotional and heart-tugging.  Unfortunately, four different writers couldn't have saved a bad script from drowning.  Though the movie made money on its star-crossed marquee values, the only thing people remember from the movie is the campaign line, "Gable's back and Garson's got him!"  Something Gable hated for years, and became one of the Hollywood's  trashiest slogans.