Never Let Me Go

To me, the films Clark Gable made in the 1950s are a notch below his prior films. That's because too often Clark played "Clark Gable" (sort of like many of John Wayne's later films) and he didn't veer far from the expected. However, NEVER LET ME GO, dares to be different. While not a great plot, it is interesting and worth seeing. Gable falls for dancer, Gene Tierney, and marries her. However, she is Russian and the government basically holds her hostage and ships Gable out of the country and refuses to renew his VISA. So, Gable organizes a mission where he sneaks into the country to smuggle his wife out from under the commies' noses. While difficult to believe, it is a great curio of the era and illustrates life in the Stalinist era (which ended the same year the film debuted).

For Never Let Me Go Clark Gable has dusted off his American correspondent role from Comrade X. In that very funny comedy, Gable was playing an American newspaperman covering the Soviet Union before World War II. He's back at his correspondent's desk in this film. However here he's deadly in earnest as a man driven by love to get his Russian bride out of the police state.

Sadly the film was dated from its release with the prominent use of newsreel footage involving Joseph Stalin. The film was released on May 1, 1953 and Stalin had died in March of 1953. The state was the same, but the personalized red bogeyman that Stalin had become was no longer there. I'm sure that must have lessened the impact for those who saw Never Let Me Go in the theater.

During the war Gable meets ballerina Gene Tierney and in the spirit of the wartime alliance they fall in love and get married. But when the shooting war against Hitler stops and the Cold War starts, no one tells them NYET concerning romance. The increasingly cynical tone of Gable's stories make him an undesirable in the Soviet Union, he gets deported and Tierney is left behind. The Soviets don't recognize marriage and romance with the enemy.

Clark's not going to take that lying down. With Richard Haydn, another man who married a Russian girl left behind, they hire Bernard Miles who has a seaworthy craft and plan a rescue. It's quite a plan and a last minute hitch should have told any sensible person to try another day. Of course that's not what happens, but it does render the last minute rescue somewhat silly.

Tierney and Gable make a sincere of pair of romantic lovers. Even without the personalization of Stalin, the film is an accurate reflection of the times. Russians are a mighty suspicious lot of people, before, during, and after the Soviet Union. Kenneth More has a very nice role as a television broadcaster presumably for the BBC who helps the leads with some coded messages in his broadcasts.

Gable was getting a bit old for these kind of romantic daring do roles by 1953 though. It's not one of the top films of his career or in that last decade of that fabled Gable career.

HUAC schmaltz with an embarrassingly bad performance from Ms. Tierney whose Russian accent is one step above (or below) Boris and Natasha.

This film was an oracle for (Cold war) before their accident ten years not by war or politics or satellite but by art and love upon a story of an American writer that fell in love with Russian dancer during the WWII and the Russian Authorities refused this love because of political misunderstanding between two countries.

I like this film because of romantic spirit and good ballet upon the shows of this movie upon different situations between love , thriller and suspense.

Clark Gable succeeded in this role as a lover but not as (Gone with the wind) and he made in his profile as an actor his still style as (A lover of Hollywood).

we are here in-front of American-Russian story as a root of cold war before ten years of it in the real of it.

"Never Let Me Go" is truly Clark Gable's last romantic movie. It shows the hardships on how an American reporter and a Russian ballerina must endure in order to marry and leave Russia. The movie shows how the Russian government interferred with the romance. In real life, Russia would hve done worst things to stop the romance, but this is a Hollywood romantic movie in the 1950's.

Clark Gable and the beautiful Gene Tierney make a beautiful couple and you route for them to escape and live happily ever after. This is a great movie to see on a rainy day or any day. It is on video.