With Gusto

Source: Screen & Radio Weekly
Date: June 26, 1938

Having made "Test Pilot" in which he was a hell-raising,death-defying flier, Clark Gable is now making "Too Hot to Handle" in which he is a hell-raising, death -defying newsreel cameraman n covering the war in China.

Gable likes working in such pictures as "Test Pilot" and "Too Hot to Handle" because they let him live on the screen the way he likes to live his own life-with gusto. They are the right kind of pictures for a guy who worked the oil fields of Oklahoma, piled lumber in Oregon, swamped" on a surveyor's chain gang, came West on the brake rods of a freight with a dime in his pocket and got into pictures by telling Director Howard Higgins that he was a rootin'-tootin' cowboy although he had never been on a horse in his life.

Gable lives with gusto and gets a big kick out of life. There was the time when he heard that Wally Beery was a great hunter. Gable also would be a great hunter. In taultless English raiment from Abercromble and Fitch he headed into the wilds of Northern Arizona and was almost laughed out of the Kalbah Forest when the cowhands saw him-the dude from the city. When the guide pointed out his first buck, Gable couldn't see it. The guide told him to aim at a certain tree and he couldn't miss the buck. Gable shot at the tree 17 times. But he wouldn't be laughed down.

Gable often goes back to the Kaibab. On his latest trip he roped a young mountain lion out of a tree and tethered it outside his cabin. The captive was gone by morning. Gable went out and roped another lion, a bigger one, and to prove it he led it back to the Metro studio on a dog leash.

Gable loves to fly, but his picture commitments keep him grounded most of the time. Not so long ago, he got a sudden urge to go flying. He had no idea where to go, but he climbed into a passenger plane. That flight took him across Mexico, the Central American countries and as far as Buenos Aires. He had the time of his life, all alone.

At another time, Gable was fidgeting about what to do to get some sort of action. He was up at Arrowhead Hot Springs. It was 2 O'clock in the afternoon when he got a telephone call from Los Angeles. It was Leo Carrillo, who, Incidentally, is with Gable in "Too Hot to Handle." Carrillo wanted Gable to go on a hunting and fishing trip to Guaymas, Mexico, Conway was going, too, and the train was to leave Los Angeles at 7 that night.

Although Gable was 90 miles away at the time of the phone call, he was the first at the station platform- with hunting togs and complete hunting and fishing gear.

Gable is always planning for adventure. He wants to fly to China and then head into India for tiger. He and Director Victor Fleming have outlined an expedition into Africa on a big game hunt.

Perhaps he will go to those places. Perhaps he will not.

That's because he's never knowing one day what he is going to do the next. But whatever it is, it will be exciting.