Somewhere I’ll Find You ** (1942, Clark Gable, Lana Turner, Robert Sterling, Patricia Dane, Reginald Owen, Lee Patrick, Charles Dingle) – Classic Movie Review 6700

Director Wesley Ruggles 1942 wartime romantic drama is the second of the four popular pairings of Clark Gable and Lana Turner at MGM, following Honky Tonk (1941) and followed by Homecoming (1948) and Betrayed (1954).

Gable and Robert Sterling play rival war correspondent brothers, ‘Jonny’ Davis and ‘Junior’ Davis, both suffering under the same editors and both after the same blonde journalist, Paula Lane (Turner). The ‘somewhere’ they find her is in Indo-China, where she is helping orphan babies out of the country.

Ruggles’s soggy, if well-meaning World War Two war romance movie, perhaps inevitably, has dated rather unkindly, though, even so, not too badly. The Gable-Turner star allure and director Ruggles’s professionalism keep it going, but it is a disappointment, though not at the 1942 box-office, where it made a very healthy profit of $1,749,000.

It also stars Patricia Dane, Reginald Owen, Lee Patrick and Charles Dingle. Van Johnson has an unbilled walk-on; it is Keenan Wynn’s début. Also in the cast are Rags Ragland, William Henry, Sara Hayden, Leonid Kinskey, Keye Luke, Frank Faylen and Grady Sutton.

Somewhere I’ll Find You runs 107 minutes, is an MGM release, is written by Marguerite Roberts based on a story by Charles Hoffman, is shot in black and white by Harold Rosson, is produced by Pandro S Berman and scored by Bronislau Kaper.

Carole Lombard (1908–1942) died in an air crash.

Tragically Gable’s wife, Carole Lombard, died in an airplane crash during the shoot on 16 January 1942, aged 33, and filming stopped for some weeks – around five weeks. Then Gable refused to return the set because of the film’s unfortunate title and it was temporarily changed to Red Light during the shoot to help him through it.

MGM boss Louis B Mayer fired Lana Turner from the film when she married jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw in 1939 against his wishes, and Esther Williams was given the role of Paula Lane. But Turner got the role back after their divorce in 1940.

Gable and Sterling (16 years his junior) then both signed up in the US Army Air Corps.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6700

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