SimonJack "Saratoga" is one of those films that is dated because it is set in a milieu that is no longer very common in America. Racetracks and thoroughbred racing once were big business, big news, and of big interest to a large number of Americans. Horseracing was known as the sport of kings. And, until well past the mid-20th century, it was the only legitimate form of public gambling around the U.S. Then came state lotteries in the 1960s. Shortly after that, casinos became legal; then other ways for people to gamble came along. All of this has greatly diminished public interest in horse racing. The take from racing peaked in 1964. Attendance and spending began to drop until by 2010, the horses represented less than three percent of the annual take from gambling. Racetracks have been closing around the country, and all projections are that racing will continue to decline and may eventually come to an end. So, films like "Saratoga" are chronicles of a fast fading American past. Dozens of movies were made in the 1930s and 1940s in which racing and racetracks have considerable exposure. This movie has a so-so plot and big name cast. The screenplay and a couple of characters seem overdone to the point of being hammy. Notably, Jean Harlow as Carol Clayton, Lionel Barrymore as Grandpa Clayton, and Frank Morgan as Jesse Kiffmeyer. Harlow is hammy in her snootiness and snobbery early in the film. Barrymore is too bellicose over the demise of his stables. Morgan's Kiffmeyer seems way overdone in his fumbling with words just to get things straight in his talking. About the only main cast members who do very well in their roles are Clark Gable, Walter Pidgeon and Una Merkel. Gable's Duke Bradley is a likable, decent fellow, and a clear denizen of the race tracks. Pidgeon is Hartley Madison, an old acquaintance of Duke's and very rich fiancé of Carol. Merkel plays Fritzi, a former friend of Duke's who is now married to Kiffmeyer. The movie gets its name from the historic racetrack at Saratoga Springs, NY (since 1863). Part of the film was shot there and other of the outdoor and track scenes were filmed at locations in Kentucky. This is a comedy-romance that not everyone will enjoy. Those who like racing and horses will go for it. For some it may be slow and boring.

jjnxn-1 Ordinary comedy would have been a cinematic footnote and a stop gap for Gable and Harlow before their next scheduled pairing on loan to Fox for the much more worthwhile In Old Chicago if not for Jean's sudden death. Instead it ended up becoming the second most profitable film of 1937 and a notorious cash grab for Metro. Not really a bad film but hardly the best film on any of the actors resumes. Other than the ghoulish, rather easy, game of spotting the scenes filmed after Jean's passing with a stand-in the film is packed with great character actors and actresses doing good work. Of particular note is Una Merkel, sassy and smart as an old crony of Gable's. Jean's part is one that's far away from her more famous early persona as a brassy good time girl but in line with the more refined lady-like roles Mayer was moving her towards after Irving Thalberg's death and which she had been transitioning to nicely. Considering the fact that it's an incomplete performance she is fine in her role, she looks weary and a bit bloated throughout not surprisingly since unbeknownst to all her kidneys were failing. Her death actually caused great upheaval in many films that were in development at the time changing the course of many careers. She and Gable were to head over to Fox for In Old Chicago which proved a boon to Alice Faye and Tyrone Power. For their services Shirley Temple was to be loaned to MGM for the Wizard of Oz, when that fell through of course Judy Garland was cast pulling her out and Ann Rutherford in to the small part of Carreen in GWTW. Also among many other planned projects Maisie, originally planned as an A production but moved to the B unit after the loss of Jean, was allocated to Ann Sothern so successfully that it started her on a series that ran, between other films, almost ten years.

Michael_Elliott Saratoga (1937) ** 1/2 (out of 4) A bookie (Clark Gable) takes a horse ranch from a friend who eventually dies but the man's daughter (Jean Harlow) does what she can to get it back. The troubled history of this film is certainly a lot more interesting than the actual film. Harlow died before the film was completed and apparently MGM was just going to put the film on the shelf but fans wanted it released so the unfinished scenes were eventually shot with a double who most of the time has her back to the camera. The scenes with the double come off pretty badly and they're rather obvious especially with the voice double. It's also rather eerie that there's a running joke in the film about Harlow being sick. As for the actual film, it's pretty disappointing due to the wonderful cast yet it still manages to be slightly entertaining. Both Gable and Harlow are good in their roles but neither do the best work of their career. The film really belongs to Lionel Barrymore who plays Harlow's uncle. He gives a wonderful comic performance and gives the film all of its laughs. Frank Morgan, Walter Pidgeon and George Zucco round out the cast.

carvalheiro "Saratoga" (1937) directed by Jack Conway, where Jean Harlow in a scene is putting face powder during a break at the horses race on Churchill Downs and she is enough interesting as character seen from her back as style and ritual of acting, as repetitive gesture of the women in instinctive standing before society with nothing to do after the end of a given race. A trip by train and sleeping at night after talking, it is another scene of anthology from the thirties or also another, where all people around approaching, inside a saloon near the room of her, listening by the radio transmission which it seems a match of baseball, but it is a race horsing for gamblers broadcast from the stadium, interrupting their domestic activities for hearing the results of the winning horse, each time screaming as little boys. Both scenes for instance were moments of social conviviality, among bosses and employees in this comedy of happiness, waiting for the next as though nothing happened out of racing horses, except the mental health of this young woman, daughter of a land owner with horses for races. The sense of a reasonable attitude is at stake, when the daughter of the owner of racing horses refuses to take medication, before the diagnostic made by the physician in her room after a break in her health. Refusing even the recommendation of staying alone on the bed, without too much light in the room by day, because her lack of sleeping when anguish and the turmoil of her own life are surrounded by friends of these quality and glamor, by whom they care after all for her better health. It is quite instructive knowing, how it is possible after such a last derby, what of either horses won really at the place of the other ; because, at first sight, it's impossible by the line of departure directly from the stadium itself during the race. The scene where is projecting a documentary, in a special session and where the viewers were a group of friends from the horses racing, with the main characters of this fiction movie there : it is almost unbelievable of happiness for the time, with smiles in every figure and particularly of the daughter of the horses farmer, for racing in such derbies and it works well as satisfactory behavior among them, when they discovered the small difference between the winner and the second place, by the slow motion at least on the last seconds, frame by frame on the screen projection with Moon Ray in second place, viewed by them in a special room aside the stadium, like a kind of referees from this distinguished people belonging to high society.