utgard14 Jean Harlow plays a streetwise dame who falls for charming con man Clark Gable. After Gable accidentally kills a guy, he takes off and leaves Harlow to take the rap. She winds up in a women's reformatory where she discovers she's pregnant. Mix of romantic comedy and drama helped a lot by the immense likability and sublime chemistry of its two leads. Harlow is terrific. One great scene has a floozy slapping Jean, only to get a punch in the kisser in return. The floozy tries it again later and gets the same results! Gable is as roguish as ever. It's hard to dislike him, even when he plays a cad. Love the girls at the reformatory. They're fun characters with some great lines. The sweet ending will please everybody but cynical types. Harlow fans should love this one.

mark.waltz In a role which seems to have been inspired by Mae West, Jean Harlow is a good time gal down on her luck, hard on the men who pass through her doors, but ultimately searching for love to guide her. When con-man Clark Gable bursts through her doors (finding her in the tub!) after a scheme that has him in danger of being caught, she immediately falls underneath his spell, although denying it from the start. She does everything she can to suppress her real feelings, even giving rival Dorothy Burgess a response to a slap across the face (two in fact!) that Burgess will never forget and will have you in stitches. The first half of the film is a comic delight, filled with many great lines, such as one where Harlow snarls at Burgess, "You know you wouldn't be a bad looking dame if it wasn't for your face", but turns dramatic as Harlow faces time in a reformatory while carrying Gable's child.A gem of a supporting cast includes Stuart Erwin, Elizabeth Patterson, Vera Lewis, and Louise Beavers in a bit role. There's a sensitive storyline involving a black inmate and her preacher father which treats them with dignity and absolutely no stereotype, an important plot point in the last reel. Harlow gets to wear some outrageous outfits, including one that looks like an orchid on steroids.

aimless-46 "Hold Your Man" is significant as Harlow's transitional film from the pre-code days. Although technically the Hays Code did not go into effect until July 1934, studios were to some extent trying to police themselves earlier than that to take some of the heat off. Harlow is significantly de-tuned physically here, from the hot presence a year earlier in "Red-Headed Woman" and "Red Dust". It also appears that to illustrate their ability to police themselves without a formal approval process, the studio tacked on a moralistic second half that turned a very entertaining romantic comedy into a sappy melodrama. The film begins when depression-era hustler Eddie (Clark Gable) and his pal Slim con a pedestrian out of $30. Running from the police he blunders into an apartment and finds Ruby (Harlow) taking a bath. Ruby turns out to be a bit of a con artist herself and gets rid of the police. Eddie takes off but he has made an impression on Ruby and she arranges an "accidental" meeting. They soon fall in love but their marriage plans are interrupted by Eddie's accidental murder of one of Ruby's marks. He gets away but Ruby gets two years in a reformatory, which is portrayed as an intense Home Economics class. Until it crashes and burns at the end this is a slick little romantic comedy written by Anita Loos (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes). Gable provides his standard bravado and Harlow gives it right back to him. The script is quite clever and entertaining. Gable does not have quite the chemistry with Harlow that he had with Claudette Colbert or Rosalind Russell, but this is the kind of film that is best when its two stars are competing instead of cuddling. Unfortunately the audience's identification impulse and emotional connection are casualties of Harlow's abrupt personality change from gritty seductress to dewy-eyed self-pitying victim. This confuses and distances those who were most involved in the story until that point. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

MartinHafer This is one of the very worst films Clark Gable made. Only PARNELL was obviously worse. It is just so painfully clichéd and the dialog is so lousy that it is something neither Gable nor Jean Harlow should have been proud of making.Gable is a heel whose illegal activities result in his girl going' to the slammer (like the gangster talk?). She holds out hope that he'll do the right thing but he just leaves her there--unknown to either of them, gosh, that she's "in the family way". Eventually, the rogue returns to do the right thing and somehow they tie this all together into a happy ending! They seemed to have forgotten about Gable's needing to take the rap and spend several years in the hoosegow. Leonard Maltin says "the stars are at their best here". By what standard? Best at producing unintended chuckles? Gimme a break!PS--after saying this, my wife thinks Leonard Maltin is going to find me and kick my butt. Hmmm. However, despite my comment, I think Mr. Maltin is the finest reviewer and human being on the planet (I hope that appeased him).UPDATE--2/2/08. Because I disliked this film so much the first time (especially the ridiculous ending), I decided to watch it once again. After all, sometimes when I watch a film again I like it much more and realize that I was a bit too harsh. While that has been the case with several films in recent months, I still disliked this film--even the second time. Most of it was not because of the first half of the film. In the first half, Harlow's character was amazingly stupid but at least it was believable. But when she was sent to prison, it was all clichés until the final ridiculous marriage scene occurred. The bottom line is that this sequence is embarrassingly dumb--it just makes no sense at all and is akin to turning the movie into some wacky fairy tale instead of a love story about two cons. I stand by my original review (despite all the "NOT HELPFULS") and think that aside from PARNELL and possibly POLLY AT THE CIRCUS, it might just be the worst Gable film.