Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

vincentlynch-moonoi For me, this is a very interesting film for several reasons.First, it is Clark Gable not long before GWTW. And clearly, Gable is at the peak of his career.I love seeing Lionel Barrymore without a wheelchair. Although it was during the shooting of this film that he fell and re-broke his hip, resulting him being in a wheelchair for most of a decade.And, of course, Jean Harlow died before the film was completed, with a double portraying her in some scenes. Personally, I've never been impressed by Harlow, and I'm not here, either. It's very obvious which scenes toward the end of the film were shot after Harlow's death.So, historically, it's an interesting piece of film history.In terms of plot, the Harlow character is the daughter of a horse breeder at Saratoga. She becomes engaged to Walter Pidgeon, a rich pigeon in the eyes of Gable. Harlow's father, who dies early on in the film, owed Gable gambling money and gives him his breeding farm. Gable falls for Harlow, of course.There are a number of character actors here that are well worth watching -- Hattie McDaniels, Frank Morgan, and Una Merkel among them.However, this is one film that won't grace my DVD shelf. Worth a watch at least once or twice, however, if only for the film history.

Boba_Fett1138 Reason why this movie in a way is perhaps a bit of a must see is because this movie features Jean Harlow in her last role before her death. She collapsed on the set and died not much later in the hospital at the age of 26. She must have been quite ill during the entire production of this movie. Is this perhaps also a reason why her character becomes ill in the movie? Because there is no real obvious other reason I can think of as of why they put that in the movie, it had little use or value to the movie its story or her character.But I surely wish that her last movie would had been a different and more worthy one. This comedy offers little entertainment and perhaps even is a bit boring at times because of the formulaic story. As a comedy it simply ain't funny enough and as a drama it ain't powerful enough. So it's a bit of a 'pointless' movie to watch. It's an extremely average romantic movie were oh so many movies like this one had been made of already.Still the atmosphere is quite good. The movie has a kind of an almost childish innocence that lot of movies made for WW II had. During and after WW II, movie's became more serious and perhaps also more meaningful. It's obvious that this movie was made just to bring shear joy and entertainment to the people in the cinema. The whole singing in the train sequence's is perhaps the best example of the movie its innocence.Clark Gable is quite good in his role but the line's he has to deliver are simply at times just plain annoying. Also the fact that Lionel Barrymore was in this movie didn't do much good for me. As an actor I can't really stand Lionel Barrymore, he so often irritates me.Most certainly not recommendable, unless you're interested in seeing Jean Harlow in her last role.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Neil Doyle It's hard to work up any enthusiasm for this sort of comedy from MGM. With stars of the caliber of Gable and Harlow, one expects much more than a routine story of the jet set circa 1930s amid a horsey racetrack background.Furthermore, watching it with an awareness that Harlow was gravely ill during filming makes the comedy even less enjoyable than it's supposed to be. Her illness shows in more than the make-up needed to hide the shadows around her eyes. She seems to be forcing herself to go through with any sense of comic timing for the sake of getting through the filming of a very tedious comedy. A certain listlessness can be detected in many of her scenes. The use of a double is painfully obvious toward the last third of the film.Seldom is there any inkling of the comic skill Gable showed in films like IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT--and never is Jean Harlow anything less than remote and listless even in some of her best moments. The cigar smoking scene is the only highlight in this otherwise feeble comedy.Only bits of trivia awareness can heighten any interest in this one. Margaret Hamilton and Frank Morgan have a train scene that reminds us they were soon to be prominently featured in THE WIZARD OF OZ. Lionel Barrymore actually walks around without even a cane--and Walter Pigeon makes his MGM debut, giving perhaps the only reasonably faultless performance in a weak film.Summing up: Insignificant both as a comedy and as Jean Harlow's last film. Unfortunately, her bloated appearance and obvious signs of illness hang like a pall over most of the film.

didi-5 'Saratoga' was Jean Harlow's last picture, and indeed suffered from a large amount of patching-up after her death mid-way through shooting (notice the scenes where her character is only present with her back to the camera, or is missing altogether). This serves to distract the viewer from the good points of her last movie (especially the scene where Harlow has to explain away the presence of a large cigar in her room; Gable of course hiding under the bed!). In the scenes which she did manage to shoot she is fabulous, although clearly not looking her best. Jean Harlow was probably the best sexy blonde comedienne of Hollywood's Golden Age, as testified by her marvellous work in Dinner at Eight, Libeled Lady, Riff Raff, and Bombshell. She lit up any scene she was in, and this movie is no exception. We can at least be grateful it wasn't ditched or recast, and that we have the snippets of her greatness within this fairly good movie.