Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786301978217
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 6301978218
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Languages: Array
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Release Date: 1998-09-01
Running Time: 107
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: 1938-09-16

Customer Rating:
Summary: They don't make 'em like this anymore...
Comment: Another great Gable flick, this one with Myrna Loy (the Queen of Hollywood, to Gable's King). Clark plays a ruthless newsreel photographer trying to stick it to rival Walter Pidgeon and woo Amelia Earhart-style aviatrix Myrna. Fast, funny, and politically incorrect. Did I mention fast?

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Golden Hollywood Film
Comment: Too Hot to Handle is like a two part story. The first part involves a group of newsreel cameramen. Chris (Clark Gable) is the best in the business although he sometimes resorts to deceitful methods. Just to spite him, a group of cameramen from another company fake a major event and don't tell him about it. He finds out and gets some of the best shots of a beautiful woman Alma (Myrna Loy) crashing a plane. However, the sound picks up and carries some information that could destroy her career.

After a fiasco with that, Chris and Alma team up to make a trip to South America to find Alma's lost brother, a pilot whose plane crashed in the jungle quite some time ago. Always looking for some great footage, Chris does all he can to manipulate the scenes with savage tribes for his benefit. Tension, hilarity, and great entertainment ensue.

This is a wonderfully fun movie starring two major movie stars in their prime. They're both in top form here and play beautifully off of each other.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A Good darn picture
Comment: Too Hot To Handle got the wonderfull thing to be a mix of comedy,romance,and adventure.The director Jack Conway who had great sucess such has "libeled lady"and later "love crazy"made a good darn picture.
Clark Gable,Mirna Loy and Walter Conely are at the top.
A satiric film sometimes againts the newspaper.
The best scene I think is the fake shoting of the chinese army with a toy of a plane and starring a girl paid ,and her dumb familly who make gable shot a pain.
Great story,wonderfull cast,and exelent directo rmake the film:
a must see film.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Clark Gable and Myrna Loy shine in fast paced fun tale
Comment: "Too fast to flop!!!" is how the advertising for this film ran prior to the 1938 release of this classic teaming of the then newly elected "King", and "Queen", of Hollywood, Clark Gable and Myrna Loy. Proudly "crowned" as Hollywood's reigning monarchs on Ed Sullivan's radio program the two were at the peak of their popularity when this film was released in guaranteeing huge profits at the Box office.

"Too Hot To Handle" directed by MGM's brilliant Jack Conway who was responsible for guiding so many classics around this time, certainly provided Clark Gable with one of his most enjoyable roles during his peak years as an MGM star. Often accused of being simply Clark Gable playing Clark Gable, here he has a rich role laced with the usual masculine qualities but also combining a creative comic tone which suits him perfectly. Gable plays Chris Hunter a "creative" newsreel photographer who will do just about anything to get a great scope for the leading article of his boss's (Walter Connolly as "Gabby' MacArthur is a highly energetic and hilarious perfromance)newspaper. The scenes of him reporting on a fake invasion of China are hilarious complete with paid Chinese children, fake miniature planes representing bombers and supposed devastation caused in the war. He is a rival of old friend and nemesis Bill Dennis played by Walter Pidgeon in a dramatic variation to his usual gentlemenly portrayals. Gable and Pidgeon make a surprisingly compatiable screen team and when dare devil aviatrix Alma harding (Myrna Loy) comes into the picture the two men find themselves not only squaring off against each other for the best photos but also for the same girl. Myrna Loy had worked with Gable to fine effect in "Manhatten Melodrama", "Wife Vs. Secretary", and "Test Pilot" and here she has an easy rapport with her leading man through the fast paced, screwball comedy. In her wonderful autobiography Loy said that she didn't think her role in "Too Hot To Handle" was much at all but considering the leading men she is up against I believe she does very well as the adventure seeking flyer with a mind of her own. The story while highly incredible, rolls along at lighting pace and takes them through a faked flight dropping off serum, to photographing a burning navy vessel, to making a trip up the Amazon in search of Loy's brother missing but believed to be alive as a prisoner of a native tribe. All these goings on are delivered with an energy and polish often unseen in modern films. The schemes that Gable and Pidgeon's characters get up to to outwit and outpace the each other are brilliant and are excellent comedy.

"Too Hot To Handle" also benefits from the terrific supporting cast that is along for the ride as well. As mentioned Walter Connoly as Gable's befuddled boss has never been better and his attempts to divorce his wife and stay in control of Gable's schemes from behind his office desk are priceless. Henry Kolker also shines as Walter Pidgeon's boss at Atlas Newsreel. Leo Carrillo as Joselito, Gable's assistant is also wonderful in particular in his reactions to getting caught up in his boss's schemes to win over Alma by fair means or foul. The usually comic Marjorie Main one of my favourite character actresses, is fairly subdued in her role as Kitty Wayne, Connolly's patient secretary but also manages some of her usual comic brilliance with some of her deadpan observations of what it is like to work in the boss's office with all this madness going on all the time.

Special mention must also be made on the very fine on-location photography which was used in this film for the South American secquences. Beautiful aerial photography of the Amazon Basin and all its tributaries are stunningly captured on film and really add to the terrific flavour of this section of the film. Much of the location work was done in Dutch Guiana and is really exceptional. For the scenes involving the native tribes the production team had the rare honour of being allowed to photograph the Matawais tribe performing the beautiful and rarely seen Dinka Fire Dance which adds tremendously to the look of the film. Despite some objections to these scenes there is nothing offensive in the way the natives are portrayed and indeed some of the scenes in this part are among the best in "Too Hot To Handle". I believe alot of people are far too sensitive nowadays and can't see the work for what it is which is entertainment. Gable's performing as a white spirit in front of the natives also often critised, in reality makes him look more foolish than the natives anyway and is a wonderfully comic scene when he runs some newsreel footage of planes and trains for the natives to convince them he is a God and has come to take away Loy's prisoner brother.

"Too Hot To Handle" is frothy, fast paced entertainment of the first order. If you enjoy rapid fire dialogue, a snappy very 1930's story, a gorgeous leading lady in a gutsy role, and funny rivalry between the leading men in work and romance then this film is for you. Rarely have I seen Clark Gable in finer form
and his comic playing really is the heart and soul of this film. Enjoy it as an example of grand old film making of the highest order when the Hollywood studios were at their peak.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Lukewarm comedy with scary racial overtones
Comment: Clark Gable plays an unscrupulous (yet heroic) newsreel photographer who falls for Myrna Loy, a gullible (yet gutsy) aviatrix with a penchant for adventure. The plot on this hyperactive screwball comedy strains under the weight of too many twists -- it's a complete flop in the dramatic department, but still has some worthy points. On an egghead-y level, it's an interesting early look at the ethics of journalism in the modern, 20th Century world -- Gable fakes his footage because the voyeuristic public wants to see blood and guts -- but who's to know, unless he gets caught? But probably of greater concern are the abombinable racial politics of the film -- Asians, latinos and Afro-Brazilians all fall prey to simplistic stereotyping; Leo Carrillo gets to read some lines en espanol, in his role as Gable's man Friday. But the climax of the film, an ooga-booga, dazzle-the-voodoo-tribe-with-white-man's-magic scene that goes on for-evvvvv-er is truly appalling, one of the worst such scenes I've ever seen. The sole redeeming aspect is that the tribal dancing was, apparently, the real deal (filmed in "Dutch Guinea," not Brazil), although the authenticity of the dancing makes the manipulation of "the natives" (or jitterbugs, as Gable calls them...) that much worse. This is definitely one for the poli-sci and ethnic studies classes.

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