Idiot's Delight
Idiot's Delight is a 1939 MGM comedy drama with a screenplay adapted by Robert E. Sherwood from his 1936 Pulitzer-Prize-winning play of the same name. The production reunited director Clarence Brown, Clark Gable and Norma Shearer eight years after they worked together on A Free Soul. The play takes place in a hotel in the Italian Alps during 24 hours at the beginning of a world war. The film begins with the backstory of the two leads and transfers the later action to a fictitious Alpine country rather than Italy, which was the setting for the play. In fact, Europe was on the brink of World War II. (The studio's attempts to make the film palatable for the totalitarian states—including the hazy geographical location and the scrupulous use of Esperanto in speech and signage—were a waste of time. They banned it anyway.) Although not a musical, it is notable as the only film in which Gable sings and dances, performing Irving Berlin's "Puttin' On the Ritz" with a sextette of chorus girls.
Plot
Harry Van, an American World War I veteran, tries to reenter show business and ends up in a faltering mentalist show with Madame Zuleika, an inept, aging alcoholic. While performing in Omaha, Nebraska, he is wooed by Irene, a trapeze artist who claims to be a refugee from the Russian Revolution and hopes to replace Harry's drunken partner in the show and as his lover. They have a romantic night, but he is suspicious of Irene's flights of fancy. The next day, Harry and Zuleika and Irene and her troupe board trains going in opposite directions.
Cast
- Barbara Bedford
- Bernadene Hayes
- Buddy Messinger
- Burgess Meredith
- Charles Coburn
- Claire McDowell
- Clark Gable
- Clem Bevans
- E. Alyn Warren
- Eddie Gribbon
- Edward Arnold
- Edward LeSaint
- Emory Parnell
- Evalyn Knapp
- Francis McDonald
- Frank Faylen
- Fritz Feld
- Garry Owen
- Hobart Cavanaugh
- Jimmy Conlin
- Joan Marsh
- Joseph Schildkraut
- Laura Hope Crews
- Margaret Bert
- Mitchell Lewis
- Norma Shearer
- Pat Paterson
- Paul Panzer
- Richard "Skeets" Gallagher
- Rudolf Myzet
- Suzanne Kaaren
- Virginia Dale
- Virginia Grey
- William Edmunds
- William Irving