They Met In Bombay 1941

Total ludicrousness. Clark Gable and Rosalind Russell play competing  British  jewel thieves who meet cute in Bombay Hollywood in order to steal a fabulous jewel necklace off the neck off Jessie Ralph who plays a rich duchess who drinks way too much. Popping up along the way is Peter Lorre in a small bit as a Chinese freighter captain, and it all gets the M.G.M high production gloss that this lowly programmer did not deserve. Russell is pushed in this film as a romantic lead, (Lana Turner was originally announced to do the part), and to my mind she is miscast. She was always good especially when playing strong women and scene stealing supporting roles, but in this film she isn’t really handled well and is not convincingly as a dame who Gable would fall for, however she does look attractive and is dressed to the hilt by Adrian. This is a very silly and unbelievable movie in which the thieves come clean and Gable posing as a British officer (don’t ask) single handedly takes out an entire Japanese army platoon getting wounded in the process and winning himself a Victoria Cross right before he’s shuttled off to prison. With lush photography by the great William Daniels and so so direction by the decent Clarence Brown. The screenplay was co-written by Anita Loos, who should have known better than to get involved in this.